Mean Green: A Visual Cultural Analysis of the National Border Patrol Museum
Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation
Authors Moreno, Gabriela Elena
Publisher The University of Arizona.
Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Download date 26/09/2021 16:35:36
Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/228170 MEAN GREEN: A VISUAL CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF
THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL MUSEUM
By
Gabriela E. Moreno
______
Copyright © Gabriela E. Moreno 2012
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN SPANISH
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
2012
2
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
GRADUATE COLLEGE
As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Gabriela E. Moreno entitled MEAN GREEN: A VISUAL CULTURAL
ANALYSIS OF THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL MUSEUM and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of
Philosophy
______Date: April 26, 2012 Dr. Laura Gutiérrez ______Date: April 26, 2012 Dr. Maribel Álvarez ______Date: April 26, 2012 Dr. Malcolm Compitello
Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College.
I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.
Dr. Laura Gutiérrez______Date: April 26, 2012 Dissertation Director
3
STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.
Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgement of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder.
SIGNED: Gabriela E. Moreno
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project would have never come to fruition without the unconditional support, guidance and numerous edits of my dissertation chair, Dr. Laura Gutiérrez. Thank you so much for all of your close reads of numerous drafts, in-depth commentary and honesty during all of my years in the Spanish and Portuguese Department. I am especially grateful for always demanding quality work and for all the knowledge you have bestowed on me and which I look forward to pass on to my students. Thank you for a great experience. Dr. Álvarez, thank you for always providing me with the best advice. Thank you for motivating me and always keeping me in your thoughts. Dr. Malcolm Compitello, thank you for all your support and insightful advise; especially for always teaching me to be a professional and to believe in myself and in my work. Thank you for sponsoring my education during my doctoral studies at the U of A. You have all become my role models and I hope to one day inspire others just like you have inspired me in this journey. I want to thank all of my professors at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese for giving me the tools to work with and for teaching me to find my own voice when writing about my research. I also want to thank Dr. María Teresa Vélez for her recruitment efforts and invitation to the U of A. Thank you to the wonderful staff for all your hard work, your advice, support and patience. Marie Messina, Mary Portillo, Isela Gonzales, and Mercy Valente, thank you for providing a home away from home. My greatest gratitude is for my family. Doña Velia and Don Pepe Abanico have always believed in me and have taught me to give only my best. José Luis Jr., Susana, Vania and Albert have been a great emotional support system near and far from home. Thank you all for allowing me to crash at your place when money was tight. Joaquín Emiliano came into my life to turn it upside down and remind me of my true priorities. Joaquín, I hope that you can be proud of your Nina and maybe one day follow in her footsteps. Johnny, thank you for being my friend through the restless and sleepless nights. Thank you for your patience and love through this whole process. I look forward to our adventures and travels around the world. Last but not least, I want to thank the Samaritans Tucson sector for allowing me to contribute in their search for peace and justice. Special thanks to Sandra Anderson, Norma Price, Debbi McCullough, and Sue Lefebvre. With the support and help of my family, advisors, colleagues, and friends, my experience at the U of A has come to a very successful and happy completion.
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DEDICATION
A mis padres, Velia Moreno y José Luis Moreno, y a mis hermanos por brindarme su amor, apoyo incondicional y por siempre estar cerca a pesar de estar tan lejos.
A mis abuelas Petra Armendáriz y Elena García porque a su manera me enseñaron lo que es ser una mujer fuerte y tenaz.
A Joaquín Emiliano porque me deja entrar a su mundo y comparte sus aventuras conmigo.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES...... 9
ABSTRACT...... 10
CHAPTER 1 SITUATING AND VISUALIZING THE NATIONAL BORDER
PATROL MUSEUM...... 12
Introduction...... 12
Theoretical Framework...... 20
Visual Cultural Studies: Is what you see really what you see?...... 31
Museology and Spatial Theory: The Production and Re-Appropriation
of Space...... 40
CHAPTER 2 HISTORY OF THE BORDER AND THE CREATION OF THE
BORDER PATROL MUSEUM...... 44
The Border: A Relationship Between the U.S. and Mexico...... 45
El Paso, Texas: Looking back from the 1900's to today...... 56
Immigration and the Creation of the Border Patrol as a Deterring Tool...... 61
FORBPO and the Foundation of the National Border Patrol Museum...... 66
CHAPTER 3 LOCUS OF ORDER: SPATIALITY IN NATION BUILDING AND
CULTURAL COMMODIFICAITON...... 69
At First Glance...... 70
Inside Out: What is a museum?...... 75
The NBPM: Heterotopic Spaces and the Status of the Nation State...... 76
Heterotopia vs. Homotopia...... 78 7
TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued
The NBPM Stays: Heterotopia vs. Homotopia in the Borderlands...... 79
The NBPM: A "Panoptic" Space and the Exercising of Power...... 86
The NBPM: The Commodification of Symbols and the Hegemonic State in Nation
Building...... 92
What is a commodity and how is it negotiable in the NBPM...... 93
Commodity: A Tool for the Hegemonic State...... 97
Commodities as Tools of Nation Building...... 101
The Monumentalization of Commodities...... 105
CHAPTER 4 WILD, WILD WEST: THE CONSTRUCTION AND
RECONSTRUCTION OF RACIAL IDENTITIES (PART I)...... 110
The Foundation of a Nation...... 112
The Anglo-Saxon Identity: What it means to be an "American"...... 117
Eugenis: Categorization and survival of the fittest...... 120
The NBPM: Reinventing and Reconstructing racial identities...... 124
The NBPM: Agency and Power Relations...... 126
Language Discourse and Identity Socialization: An Efficient Resource...... 126
The Artifacts Frozen in Time...... 133
The hypermasculinity and the American male figure...... 136
The Cowboy Within...... 142
The Hero and Soldier Within...... 146
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TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued
CHAPTER 5 HOMIES IN THE HOUSE: THE CONSTRUCTION AND
RECONSTRUCTION OF RACIAL IDENTITIES (PART II)...... 151
The Struggle Between Race, Ethnicity, and Citizenship...... 155
Racial Profiling: The Act of Natural Selection...... 165
"ILLEGAL" Homies in the House...... 166
"Homie Don't Play That"...... 167
A Threat to the American Race and Culture...... 172
Moving from the mundane to ethnographic artifacts...... 172
The "chiv": A tool of "illegal immigrant" representation...... 176
Indigenous methods as a racial profiling and discrimination tool...... 180
The "illegal immigrant": a threat to the American way of life...... 184
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION...... 188
The Construction and Reconstruction of racial identities revisited...... 188
APPENDIX A CODE OF THE FRONTLINE...... 195
APPENDIX B TRIBUTE TO A FALLEN AGENT...... 196
REFERENCES...... 198
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LIST OF FIGURES*
Figure 1.1, Sign located at the entrance of the NBPM...... 12 Figure 1.2, Merchandise with "Mean Green" slogan...... 15 Figure 1.3, Poster and t-shirt with slogans...... 25 Figure 2.1, Display exhibiting the first mounted guards...... 62 Figure 2.2, Photograph of Chinese immigrants in detention camps...... 63 Figure 3.1, The outside of the NBPM...... 71 Figure 3.2, The front entrance to the NBPM...... 72 Figure 3.3, An antique vehicle seized by the Border Patrol...... 80 Figure 3.4, A decommissioned helicopter utilized by the Border Patrol...... 81 Figure 3.5, The exhibit halls viewed from the front entrance...... 88 Figure 3.6, The main office located in front of the main entrance...... 89 Figure 3.7, Side view of the main entrance...... 92 Figure 3.8, Merchandise sold in the museum...... 95 Figure 3.9, Wall of Support where patrons receive a plaque of recognition...... 96 Figure 3.10, Art pieces for sale in the museum...... 99 Figure 3.11, In the Line of Duty Memorial Room and the Border Patrol agents who gave their lives for the agency...... 103 Figure 3.12, Poster honoring those who gave their lives in the line of duty...... 106 Figure 4.1, Sign that hangs on the entrance of the museum...... 126 Figure 4.2, Decommissioned Camaro utilized by the Border Patrol...... 134 Figure 4.3, Miniature reproductions of Border Patrol vehicles...... 135 Figure 4.4, Art pieces depicting the cowboy representation...... 142 Figure 4.5, Male riding a horse as the cowboy representation...... 143 Figure 4.6, 20-foot statue that stands outside the museum...... 144 Figure 4.7, Display honoring the attack on September 11...... 148 Figure 5.1, "Bid Dopey" Homies figurine representing "illegal" immigrant...... 151 Figure 5.2, Border Patrol agents action figures...... 153 Figure 5.3, Glass display of replicas of Border Patrol vehicles...... 168 Figure 5.4, Homies figurines on display in the NBPM...... 169 Figure 5.5, Border Patrol agents action figures on display...... 170 Figure 5.6, Homies figurines on display in the NBPM...... 171 Figure 5.7, Homies figurines on display in the NBPM...... 171 Figure 5.8, Display of objects confiscated by the Border Patrol...... 172 Figure 5.9, Close-up of display of objects confiscated by the Border Patrol...... 173 Figure 5.10, Double panel display of weaponry...... 177 Figure 5.11, Single panel display of weaponry...... 178 Figure 5.12, Sandals with pieces of wood cut-outs shaped as cow hoofs...... 181 Figure 5.13, Wood cut-outs shaped as cow hoofs...... 181
*All illustrations are photographs taken by me during my visits to the NBPM.
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ABSTRACT
The National Border Patrol Museum (NBPM) in El Paso, Texas presents a view of the history, culture and life along the U.S.-Mexico border that no other museum in the world can offer. Moreover, it provides an opportunity to study and understand people and life in the border through the different forms in which they are representing themselves and how others view them as well. Mean Green: A Visual Cultural Analysis of the National Border Patrol Museum is a visual cultural analysis of the museum that deploys theoretical approaches in the disciplines of visual and cultural studies, Border
Studies, Ethnic Studies, discourse analysis, museology, and spatial theory.
The objectives of this dissertation are: 1) to study the varied representations, i.e., the hypermasculine white American male and the disenfranchised "illegal" immigrant, that reinforce and challenge the dominant discourse present in the hegemonic state and which are deconstructed when rearticulated in everyday border life; 2) to analyze why the museum represents a homotopia within the limits of a heterotopia; 3) to learn how the museum creates imagined communities through the use of its historical patrimony; 4) to observe the practices in relations of power by employing the notion of panopticon in their design and impose power over its visitors; and finally 5) to understand how the museum is providing a commodification of symbols to promote the hegemonic state. 11
I reference historical events to frame the research for this project: history of the border, especially the El Paso border region, the creation of The Fraternal Order of
Retired Border Patrol Officers, the history of the Border Patrol and the NBPM.
Altogether, this work shows how the National Border Patrol Museum's exhibits and artifact displays are a reflection of what is happening in the border region.
12
CHAPTER 1
SITUATING AND VISUALIZING THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL
MUSEUM
Introduction
Museums are an important part of the our cultural and historical processes because they help shape our collective identity; they provide a path to the history and life of people in society; they are a way to connect with ones past and ancestry. I recall that as a child, the visits to the museums provided a new sense of independence, excitement and fear of a world that seemed so foreign at the time. A space filled with UFOs, cattle, dinosaurs and art, drives the creativity and curiosity of any child who may encounter such an environment to a new level of experience. The combination of excitement and fear is a thrill that I continue to search for and experience I feel in my visits to any museum.
The visits always provide a sense of nostalgia and are reminiscent of childhood years, of innocence and independence lost.
The idea of having access to history, life and culture is one of the driving forces for this project.
The National Border Patrol Museum (NBPM, as I will refer to it from here on), located in El Paso,
Texas, presents an infinite amount of information Figure 1.1 that will allow any visitor to view a side of history, 13
life and culture in the U.S.-Mexico border that no other museum in the world can offer
(see figure 1.1). It is via the analysis of the NBPM exhibits that I am able to better understand the dynamic between those representations exposed in the borderlands.
In this project I employ an interdisciplinary lens in part because the study of a space that brings together visual culture, politics, and history necessitates it. I deploy
Border Studies methodologies to discuss and examine the different representations exhibited in the National Border Patrol Museum and how these are reproduced and in some instances constructed, deconstructed and rearticulated in everyday border life. My interdisciplinary and eclectic methods draw from Border Studies, Ethnic Studies, Visual
Cultural Studies, semiology, discourse analysis, museology, and spatial theory, in order to analyze the space and different representations produced within its borders, and ultimately, to try to understand what the NBPM is doing culturally and socially.
In studying these representations, I pay particular attention to an analysis of symbols, space, and discourse. The NBPM has achieved a certain amount of power that permeates throughout the U.S.-Mexico border region and beyond. This has caused the perpetuation and reinforcement of these same representations and has promoted the creation of new ones. I am not only looking at the museum but also paying attention to the way in which the NBPM constructs the Hispanics/Latinos1 as dehumanized and objectified people. The reference to the undocumented immigrant and the border agent representations in many of the exhibits, has contributed to additional acts of violence, prejudice and racism. My experience as a border inhabitant and my reading of the
1 I have chosen to use the word Hispanic or Latino interchangeably to refer to all the people of Mexico or other Latin American countries residing in the United States. 14
museum, while problematic because of my advocacy for a comprehensive immigration reform, have provided the opportunity to understand the dynamic and relations of the border.
I have lived in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona and have seen firsthand what effects these damaging border discourses have on our border communities. The State of
Arizona alone is continuously struggling to figure out what to do with the increasing amount of undocumented immigrants arriving and living in the different communities; only to find out that their many attempts, including SB1070, have only aggravated their current economic, cultural and racial status.2 In New Mexico, the lack of resources and government monies has pushed government officials to argue for a halt on licenses and government aid for undocumented immigrants, forcing many of the immigrant communities to enter into a more precarious state because of their fear of persecution, than the one in their own countries. Many of them have settled here and are now forced to leave their children and everything they have worked so hard to attain. Texas is currently making attempts to establish a senate bill similar to SB1070, the Arizona
Enforcement of Immigration Law, which is bound to have similar effects at a larger scale.3 One needs to only reflect on the situation that currently afflicts Arizona, New
2 SB1070 is the Enforcement of Immigration Laws and requires the cooperation and assistance in enforcement of immigration laws. "The legislature finds that there is a compelling interest in the cooperative enforcement of federal immigration laws throughout all of Arizona. The legislature declares that the intent of this act is to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona. The provisions of this act are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States." Information obtained from a copy of the Senate Bill proposed by the State of Arizona to Legislature in 2010. 3 In May of 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on SB1070, a bill signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in April 2010. In "Supreme Court to hear Arizona immigration case: Who wins, loses?" by James Eng 15
Mexico and Texas to understand how certain representations have shaped the border discourses. The goal of my project is to take these border representations exhibited in the
NBPM and analyze them in order to comprehend how they are contributing and affecting the border discourse. I focus on deconstructing the representations that continue to perpetuate in dominant ideology.
The title of my dissertation Mean Green: A Visual Cultural Analysis of the
National Border Patrol Museum, was chosen because “Mean Green” is the terminology used by the Border Patrol agents to refer to the agency as an object (machine) in action.
The Border Patrol has used the word “mean” as a rhetorical strategy that allows it to move from a defensive to an offensive position (Barrera 169).
There is always an adversary in this dynamic in the defensive and offensive position. In this case, the
adversary is the undocumented immigrant. In Figure 1.2 relation to the immigrants, the word “mean” has taken a different significance in this project. One meaning is referencing the mean streak carried by the Border Patrol agents while dealing with the immigrants crossing the border. Yet, another way one could read the word, which is appropriate to this project, is to think of the relationship between "mean" and meaning, as signifying practices. In combination with the word green, its significance will help me analyze and understand what the “mean(ing) of green” is in the rhetoric in the border (see figure 1.2). The color 16
green has a very strong presence in the border region and in its association with the
Border Patrol.
This project begins with an observational account and description of the museum as well as a discussion about its historical background. I situate it within the disciplines of Border Studies and Ethnic Studies. The focus for this project is on the visual cultural representations in the space of the museum. I deploy on the theories of semiology and discourse analysis to examine the cultural representations created by the content, location, production and meaning in the displays. My concern is not whether something is true, but how it becomes construed as the truth in the museum context; for this, I rely on the theories of museology and spatial theory. I also analyze the contextual relevance of certain art practices and their historical and cultural significance. I study how culture is a site of the negotiation of identity, not only for marginalized groups like the undocumented immigrant, but for elites and nationalists like many of the Border Patrol agents. The National Border Patrol Museum is ideal for studying border representations because of its relevance and importance in the U.S.-Mexico border.
I first encountered media-produced images of Hispanics as illegal immigrants4, as marginalized poor and as criminals during one of my first visits to the museum. These images are representing the racial and economic stratification, the ideology and values
4 For this project, I will refer to everyone who migrated illegally to the United States as "illegal aliens" and "illegal immigrants". I chose these terms in order to make a connection between the exhibits in the NBPM, the political rhetoric in this country and the dehumanizing manner in which these individuals continue to be treated. I am aware that the act of entering this country without their presence being recorded or documented is what is illegal and not the human beings themselves. I could have chosen terms like undocumented immigrant, unregistered immigrant or immigrants; however, the connotation in the use of these words would not have the same effect in my work. These terms in any way reflect my own personal views. 17
upheld in U.S. society. The NBPM presents a detailed presence of borders and their disorienting and limiting effects on people. This project has also focused on evidencing the ways in which ordinary people act in the areas that are open to them. For example, the NBPM uses icons and images to advance their individual collective interests. The museum is dedicated to the Border Patrol agency and as such, it has been producing and reproducing a variety of discourses in form of postcards, books, videotapes, and promotional merchandise. I address the relationship between territory, mobility, and self- representation as constructive in Border Patrol discourse.
My dissertation proposes to answer some questions, all of which surfaced during the research process. How is it that identities are construed over time in a particular space like the NBPM? How do visual representations of diverse identities function within the same space? How are identities represented visually? How do these become
"true" once you step out of the museum? How does linguistic discourse change within this time and space? How are these representations contributing or manipulating the border region? What role does race play in the importance of representations? These are only a few of the questions that I address in this project.
The dissertation is structured the following way: it includes four main chapters (2-
5) that are prefaced by Chapter 1, which serves as the introduction. Chapter 1: “Situating and Visualizing the National Border Patrol Museum,” presents the theoretical frame for this project. As an interdisciplinary project, this dissertation draws from the following areas of study: Border Studies, Ethnic Studies, Visual Cultural Studies, semiology, 18
discourse analysis, museology, and spatial theory. I have included several theoretical approaches that will help me bring together the different threads of this project.
Chapter 2: “History of the Border and the Creation of the Border Patrol Museum,” is dedicated to analyzing the National Border Patrol Museum and its importance in the border region. The NBPM, located in El Paso, Texas, is the only museum dedicated to the Border Patrol in the entire United States. I also discuss the location and establishment of the museum from its origins including the formation of The Fraternal Order of Retired
Border Patrol Officers (FORBPO). Even though my intention is not to create a history of the NBPM, I do fall back on many of the historical facts as a base for my analysis. I discuss historical events that took place in the border region located in El Paso, Texas and
Juarez, Chihuahua in order to establish a historical framework about the border region.
This allows me to reference the different archetypes and representations developed throughout history: the hypermasculine male, the cowboy, hero, soldier, Homies, and illegal immigrants. These archetypes and their representations, of which I address in later chapters, have become a strong influence for the NBPM and its visual collection.
In Chapter 3: “Locus of Order: Spatiality in Nation Building and Cultural
Commodification,” I present a personal observational account of my walk through the museum. These observations provide an understanding of its content and how it is serving a specific purpose of nation building and commodification of the symbols used in the process. I include a discussion about museums in general and how these are spaces where all things are ordered as means to fulfill a purpose, and transmit messages with multiple meanings. The objects like playing cards, shirts, caps, toy trucks, and teddy 19
bears are presented as a form of nation building. The narratives, exhibitions and displays contribute to created an imagined community which makes visitors feel as they are united by one belief and one nation. Furthermore, the exhibitions, in their use of space and the inclusion and exclusion of artifacts and narratives, are perpetuating a dominant ideology.
I also include a section about nation building by relating it to the museum space as one that is contested by those same representations in conflict. I analyze the museum as a homotopic space and its effects in the relation to the nation-state. I also interpret and analyze of the NBPM as a “panoptic” space and the different forms in which it exercises its power. Finally, I discuss the commodification of culture and the most important national symbols.
Chapter 4: “Wild, Wild, West: The Construction and Reconstruction of Racial
Identities (Part I),” focuses on issues of race and legality. In this chapter, I discuss how the NBPM has constructed, deconstructed and rearticulated identity representations. The museum has revisited history and reworked it to fit its contemporary political discourse that is reminiscent of one that resonates in the border region. I also focus on the immigrants and Border Patrol agents as cultural brokers and carriers as well as dealers of their own culture.
Chapter 5: “Homies in the House: The Construction and Reconstruction of Racial
Identities (Part II),” presents how certain ethnic groups have managed to construct and reconstruct their identity in order to reclaim their agency in the border. By considering the aspects of race, class, citizenship and legality, I intend to demonstrate how the NBPM 20
has, in some instances, reinvented or reconstructed ethnic and racial identities by revisiting history; this is done to serve the current needs and rhetoric of the times.
I conclude this project by making connections between all the chapters and address and reformulate some of the major points presented in each individual chapter.
Theoretical Framework
Border Studies is a much debated inter-discipline because many theorist and historians are still trying to define all the work that we, the so called borderólogos or
"borderologists," are doing in our field. I consider myself a "borderologist" and I propose a definition of Border Studies that bests suits my area of research. In this project I am emphasizing a study of the U.S.-Mexico border. Border Studies is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses many disciplines. Social scientists and historians have collected data, recalled history and referenced the border region by looking at the historical facts and finding a locus of enunciation. This allows a space of research where other disciplines, such as Visual Cultural Studies, can contribute by observing and analyzing the border using a different lens.
The Border Studies scholar moves towards a more global perspective and begins to gain more interest in international affairs that are affecting the border region. Border
Studies, started to integrate the areas of anthropology, linguistics, cultural studies, ethnic studies, visual cultural studies, performance studies, social science, gender studies and literary studies. The integration of other disciplines is reconceptualizing Border Studies and expanding it. The field is constantly evolving and with the effects of globalization it has become more inclusive of other disciplines. For example, the sciences are becoming 21
involved in the study of the ecological and environmental effects behind the construction of the border fence. "Such natural resources as water and such environmental problems as air pollution, which have never paid much attention to the location of the international boundary, have become binational problems spanning the border" (Lorey 154).
Scientists, anthropologists, and environmental groups are challenging the construction of the border fence. As a result, the New York Times reported that the "federal government has pledged millions of dollars to make up for the environmental damage from building hundreds of miles of fences along the Mexican border through wilderness and protected lands" (Archibold 1). This is only one example of how the sciences have become involved in the Border Studies inter-discipline.
As stated earlier, Border Studies has permitted the study of the contact point between the U.S. and Mexico with a different emphasis, which includes a more global perspective. The border region, terms that I will use to reference this contact point, has been studied from many different perspectives. My first question during the proposal for this project was: What is the border? I know that I am referring to the contact point between two entities or locations; however, in my research, there are instances where I find "borders" present in a metaphorical sense. How can we refer to a border as not physical and tangible? French philosopher Michel Foucault stated that the "sense of our self is made through the operation of discourse. So too are objects, relations, places, scenes: discourse produces the world as it understands it" (quoted in Rose, G. 137).
Based on the words of Foucault, human subjects along with other objects and places are produced through discourse. The border is one of those spaces or places that is produced 22
through discourse. The point of contact between the United States and Mexico is a discursive construction. The "border" can have an infinite amount of definitions because it is the reader who holds and constructs its meaning.
The "border" is represented through a series of discursive constructions that help frame the research for my dissertation. In constructing a meaning for "border", I referenced the metaphors proposed by many theorists, scientists, historians, and writers. I have chosen to discuss different metaphorical constructions of the border because they help frame the research for this project and serve as reference for the representations constructed within the museum space. One of the most commonly used metaphors to describe the border is "porous". Border theorist Claudia Sadowski-Smith, in
Globalization on the Line, presents the border as porous when she states that after the
North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA),5 the North American borders were "more porous to the free flow of goods and capital. But the agreement makes virtually no provisions for the free passage of people and has not prevented the further reinforcement of the U.S.-Mexico border" (1). The porous state refers to the fact that "goods and capital" are able to move freely between all countries. The United States is able to import and export products with no difficulty due to the agreement between countries.
Part of that flow also includes human beings that are coming through this porous environment through legal and illegal means. The porous state has also allowed a pathway of connections for others to come and follow. The border is currently affected
5 "NAFTA, one of the primary political instruments of globalization in the Americas, has, since its implementation in 1994, eradicated trade tariffs between Mexico, the United States, and Canada (Sadowski-Smith 1). 23
by an aggravated wave of crime and violence that has afflicted the country of Mexico.
The porosity has become greater because there is great pressure for many to leave
Mexico; moreover, it has increased the number of immigrants coming into the United
States illegally, even when the risk and immigration enforcement is greater. As you will see in Chapter 5, porous boundaries have also affected and impeded access to citizenship.
To summarize: "Porous boundaries and multiple identities undermine ideas of cultural belongings as a necessary accompaniment to political membership" (Castles and
Davidson viii). According to common belief in the United States, in order to endure living in a country that is not their own and to benefit from all this country has to offer, an immigrant has to belong and function within the dominant culture. But, because of the porous state of the border, these immigrants continue to hold cultural and political ties that could possibly affect their so-called progress and membership as citizens of the
United States.
In his book, The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border 1978-1992: Low-
Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home, Timothy Jay Dunn discusses the border as militarized. He emphasizes how the late 1970's brought high-technology equipment to
U.S.-Mexico border. This technology included helicopters, electronic intrusion-detection ground sensors and transmitters, closed-circuit television systems, radar and infrared detection systems, 10-foot-high chain-link fences and the low-intensity conflict (LIC doctrine)6 form of militarization (38). The latest grandiose gesture made by the
6 "The essence of the LIC doctrine is the establishment and maintenance of social control over targeted civilian populations through the implementation of a broad range of sophisticated measures via the coordinated and integrated efforts of police, paramilitary, and military forces" (Dunn 4). The United States has implemented more severe versions of the doctrine in Latin America and other countries in the world. 24
government and Border Patrol is the virtual border fence that cost the taxpayers $1 billion.7
The militarization of the border is a central theme in the research for my project because it sets the backdrop for Chapter 4. The border gains meaning through the discursive construction of the border as a place of fear, war, and violence. This is the image that has allowed the Border Patrol agent to be portrayed as a heroe. "The U.S.-
Mexico border has become theater, and border theater has become social violence.
Actual violence has become inseparable from symbolic ritual on the border - crossings, invasions, lines of defense, high-tech surveillance, and more" (Rosaldo 257). As you will see in "Wild, Wild West: The Construction and Reconstruction of Racial Identities (Part
1)," the NBPM is contributing to this border theater by portraying all the weaponry confiscated by the agents and by describing the battle between the immigrant and agent as a war.
Performance artist Guillermo Gómez Peña has also commented on the discursive construction of the border as a location of fear, crime, violence and war. He says that for
"the North American the border becomes a mythical notion of national security. The border is where the Third World begins. The US media conceives the border as a kind of war zone. A place of conflict, of threat, of invasion" (quoted in Fusco 55). I agree with
Gómez Peña's depiction of the border as a mythical notion of national security because that is what the Border Patrol agents perceive. The agents see this mythical boundary of
7 According to the Fox News website, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has canceled the troubled virtual fence project, known as the SBInet, because of delays and technological glitches; furthermore, the U.S. is not able to provide a "single, integrated border security technology solution" but will integrate a new plan that will use different technologies in different areas. 25
our nation that they have to
protect against immigrants,
criminals, and terrorists in
any means possible. The
NBPM has integrated this
perception into their rhetoric
when they use slogans like,
"First Line of Defense", Figure 1.3 "Honor First", "Win the War on Drugs", and "Mean Green" (see figure 1.3). I wonder who they need to protect themselves from: the immigrant, the smuggler, the drug dealer or the Mexican8, since they are always grouped into the same category.
The conflicts between the inhabitants of the border have come from the perceived differences in culture, and from uneven economic structures. These conflicts have been outlined and studied since prior to the Spanish conquest. The chronicles of the conquistadores have presented us with an overview of the different conflicts and adversities confronted by the population that resided in the borderlands region. In the writings of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Pérez de Villagrá, they describe how territorial wars as well as racial divides, established new forms of life in the borderlands just to help them cohabitate and guarantee their survival. In the early 1800’s, the
8 Using the term "Mexican" is to poke fun at the fact that the immigrants of Mexican origins are always the first to be targeted when referenced in media, politics and culture, but Mexican nationals are not the only ones in the U.S.-Mexico border to enter into this country. 26
Mexican population was in conflict with the Native American tribes, like the Apache, in a struggle for land. The 1830’s brought the struggles for land to the State of Coahuila,
Mexico where the Texans and the Mexican government battled over the territory that we now know as the state of Texas.
As part of the Manifest Destiny Doctrine, the U.S. nationals continued to foresee the supposed uncharted territory as their own. The Mexican-American War of 1846-48 ended when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed; it granted California, Arizona,
New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and parts of Wyoming and Oklahoma to later claim Texas. These events in history have not only influenced but continue to shape what is known as the border. Kathleen Anne Lytle Hernandez argues that national boundaries became racially divided when, because of Manifest Destiny, the U.S. went to war with
Mexico in 1846; leading the Americans to imagine the borderline between “the free white race” and the “half-savage, half-civilized race of Mexico”(3). This is only the beginning of the divide between the U.S. white race and the indigenous race in and from Mexico that continues to take place in the border.
In Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa presents the border as an herida abierta, an open wound. She states that the "U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country - a border culture" (3). The metaphor of a bleeding border is also a form of presenting the point of contact between the U.S. and Mexico as wounded and fragmented. Anzaldúa presents it as scabbing and hemorrhaging. This is another metaphor that is present in the 27
NBPM with the poem to the "Fallen Agent".9 The author and Border Patrol agent, Doug
Mosier from the El Paso, Sector, provides the image of the agent immortalized, and leaving his sweat and blood in the folds of the flag. Mosier references the agent as a quiet warrior in green, lifeblood of the border. The shedding of blood is present in many narratives and representations in the NBPM. The evoking of wounds is displayed in the objects belonging to the immigrants that were confiscated by the Border Patrol agents. In this particular display, which I discuss in detail in Chapter 5, one sees what appears to be a vial of medicine and a set of bandages or gauze. These objects most likely belonged to a more experienced border crosser because only they would know about the wounds inflicted while crossing the border. Immigrants also bleed and die in this border war.
The deaths of the immigrants are referenced as a metaphorical discursive construction of the border. This metaphor has become more than a trope or analogy of the border; it has become a part of the border crossing experience.
Anzaldúa has referred to the border as a place where the Third World makes contact with the first world to create a third country (3). Gómez Peña calls it the location where the Third World begins. This notion of a third space is one proposed by theorist
Hommi Bhabha in The Location of Culture; who states:
The intervention of the Third Space of enunciation, which makes the
structure of meaning and reference an ambivalent process, destroys this
mirror of representation in which cultural knowledge is customarily
revealed as integrated, open, expanding code. Such an intervention quite
9 Please refer to Appendix B 28
properly challenges our senses of the historical identity of culture as
homogenizing, unifying force, authenticated by originary Past, kept alive
in the national tradition of the People. (37)
Bhabha's view of a third space where meanings and references are unresolved because of the contact between different entities, which come in and shatter the ideology of culture is present just outside of the museum's walls. Within the NBPM, the representation of immigrants as dehumanized and objectified criminals, drug smugglers and traffickers fits more accordingly with the hegemonic state and its assumptions. As soon as one steps outside of the museum, one is confronted by the reality of the border with its people, culture and that does not fit neatly into hegemonic ideology. The conflict between the representations of immigrants inside and outside the museum shatters dominant culture is ideology.
The U.S.-Mexico border is incomparable to any other region in the world. This point of contact has created a new scope that has attracted the interests of many theorists and historians because of its peculiar dynamic. The border has been portrayed as a very contested space because, as Bhabha puts it; "The non-synchronous temporality of global and national cultures opens up a cultural space - a third space - where the negotiation of incommensurable differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences... Hybrid hyphenisations emphasize the incommensurable elements as the basis of cultural identities" (Bhabha 218). The "third space," as Bhabha proposes it, allows for the differences of these entities in the border to become part of border cultural identity where all differences are represented. Benedict Anderson would describe the border as a 29
community that becomes imagined when even though most of its members do not know each other, in their minds “lives the image of their communion” (6). This would also mean that these members are imagining others occupying a shared space and participating in shared cultural practices. The members of this imagined community function in the efforts of their cause, which is the discursive construction of a border culture.
It is here, in the analysis of the border as a discursive construction, that this project is situated because it allows for a border scholar like myself to visit a space like the NBPM and view life in the border through the artifacts and narratives presented.
These artifacts also allow me to read, analyze and understand the different representations and ethnic power relations exhibited in the museum and in the border region.
Ethnic Studies, as an interdisciplinary field, focuses on the study of people and situates race and racism as an intricate process of their interaction. The field observes the political, economic and social relations and the different forces of human interaction which include culture and space because of their role in the study of their traditions and customs. The racial struggle in the borderlands is most evident when specific groups, of which I will address in later chapters, fight to protect their racial and cultural ideals. I want to address the definition of race and culture in order to understand and further analyze the dynamic in the relationships between the different ethnic groups in the border. Ironically, the terms “race” and “culture” have been misappropriated and misrepresented so often that their definitions have become intertwined. 30
In this project, I decided to use the definition for race and culture presented in the work by sociologists, Peter I. Rose. In his work, Rose refers to sociologists Rubén G.
Rumbaut, when he suggests that race is only “a pigment of the imagination,” since our race is first socially constructed and then later defined by those same constructions (12).
Factors such as, socioeconomic status, cultural preferences, and behavioral parameters are used to define and represent race. Furthermore, “racism” is “a connection between looks and outlooks, between one’s genetic makeup and the way one thinks and acts.
And, going farther, implicit in the idea of racism is the assumption of group-based superiority and inferiority” (Rose, P. 12). The superiority and inferiority complexes have become part of the struggle to sustain a presence in the border region. Such is the case for the descendents of Mexican immigrants and the descendents of Anglo-Saxon nativists that inhabit the border today.10
Culture also plays an important part in the struggle between the two major groups since it aids in the understanding and shaping of each other as a race. Peter Rose defines culture as “the way people live; the rules they set for themselves; the general ideas around which they organize their lives; the things they feel are good or bad, right or wrong, pleasurable or painful” (10-11). The cultural parameters are usually learned and taken from others, those whom I refer to as cultural brokers, carriers and dealers of culture.
10 Historian George J. Sánchez presents his definition of a "new racial nativism" in his article "Face the nation: race, immigration, and the rise of nativism in late twenthieth century America" in International Migration Review, vol. 31, no. 4, Special Issue: Immigrant Adaptation and Native-Born Responses in the Making of Americans (Winter, 1997), pp. 1009-1030. I address "new racial nativism" in Chapter 4. 31
The United States, as a nation has historically placed people of color in inferior positions. Yet, there is nothing in the genetic making that would predispose nonwhites to belong to such inferior status. There are instances in history that have aided in the shaping of this racial stratification. Even though, my dissertation is not addressing the ideological history of the racial stratification, I am referencing the incidents in history that have led the representation of immigrants to portray them as dehumanized and criminalized within the NBPM space. This dissertation allows me to further analyze the racial roles presented in the museum. I address the different racial representations and their functions within and outside of the museum.
Visual Cultural Studies: Is what you see really what you see?
I discuss the theoretical framework for Visual Cultural Studies because as a scholar, I am concerned with understanding how the images presented in the museum are arranged in relation to each other. I pay close attention to the cultural representations in the NBPM. Are these images connected in any way? Are they isolated from other images? What are they trying to say? Are they static or dynamic? Is the space of presentation simple or complicated? These and other questions are addressed in this and the following chapters.
There is a growing body of theoretical and critical work in Visual Culture Studies that has brought about a new way of studying the definitions and functions of everyday life as they are performed for visual production and consumption. The most important factor is visualizing the representations through the eyes of the consumers and producers 32
of such culture. The consumer is taking a more active role in what he/she sees and how they want to interpret what is seen.
Visual Culture Studies, along with Cultural Studies and Border Studies have established an academic approach that breaks away from the limits of traditional academic disciplines. In the case of Visual Cultural Studies, these are centered in understanding the individual and group of consumer’s response to visual media. The importance of studying visual culture is rooted in the fact that as consumers we are seeing it in everyday life but not necessarily knowing what we are seeing. Nicholas Mirzoeff discusses visual culture as one being preoccupied with visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure is sought out by the consumer (4). This includes such visual technology as exhibits, displays, paintings, television programming and the
Internet. The process of visualization includes understanding the information or meaning provided by the visual events. This is done by the observer when he/she recalls the signs and symbols of representation. The stability of the visual events and images also changes in its relationship with the exterior reality since these are connected through the influence and background of the consumer. Events inside the museum become “contested, debated, and transformed as a constantly challenging place of social interactions and definition in terms of class, gender, sexual and racialized identities” (Mirzoeff 4). Visual culture functions within the identity formations and also reflects and informs about relationships based on the dominion of one group over another. These aspects of identity formation are the ones that give meaning to the representations. This meaning is then utilized to make sense of what we see and reconstruct it outside of the museum context. 33
In its simplest explanation, visual culture is "those material artefacts, buildings and images, plus time-based media and performances, produced by human labour and imagination, which serve aesthetic, symbolic, ritualistic or ideological-political ends, and/or practical functions, and which address the sense of sight to a significant extent"
(Walker and Chaplin quoted in Rose, G. 14). This has been a traditional way of defining visual culture. Unfortunately, this definition disregards one major aspect of visual culture
- how spectators see the images. There needs to be a direct connection between the person seeing the image, which I will refer to as the spectator, and the object being observed, which is referred to as the artifact.
To address the role of the spectator, I refer to Visual Methodologies where visual cultural theorist Gillian Rose, presents five aspects that engage in understanding visual culture. Firsts, visual culture proposes that "images themselves do something" (10). The images have to evoke feeling, reactions, and expression of some sort. These images have to "be powerful and seductive in their own right" (10). Second, Gillian Rose also states that visual culture is concerned with "the way in which images visualize (or render invisible) social difference" (10). The theorist adds that looking at images "entails, among other things, thinking about how they offer very particular visions of social categories such as class, gender, race, sexuality, able-bodiedness, and so on" (11). As spectators we are not to only to visualize an image but we are to construct and depict meaning and social difference. Rose proposes a third trait in the study of visual culture.
She states that visual culture should be concerned with "how images look" and "how they are looked at" (11). When viewing the images, we should pay close attention to the 34
image and how it is visualized by spectators. The images invite us to different interpretations and as spectators we should be aware of our own interpretations as well as those of others; and how they are in relation to ourselves. Fourth, Rose suggests that visual culture should have an emphasis on the "embeddedness of visual images in a wider culture" (12). The spectator has to take into account that these images can take place in many different social contexts and spaces and not necessarily in the one we are visualizing it in its current state. Finally, Rose proposes that in visual culture, one must remember that the images may be "a site of resistance and recalcitrance, so too might a particular audience" (15). Not all spectators will respond in the same manner as intended by the narrative of the painting. The spectator's background and ideology can sometimes contradict what is intended by those creating the image.
Social theorists, Dominic Strinati discusses Roland Barthes theoretical framework on semiology. Strinati defines semiology as a science of signs, the production of meaning, the process of signification (109-10). According to him, "Reality is always constructed, and made intelligible to human understanding by culturally specific systems of meaning (Strinati 109-10). The meanings are never innocent because they have a particular purpose or interest behind them. "There is no such thing as a pure, uncoded, objective experience of a real and objective world." All meanings are not something that are just given and/or taken for granted. The theorist states that codes and signs "make meaning possible and thus allow human beings to interpret and make intelligible the world around them" (109). This then means that all meanings are subjective and, therefore, heavily scrutinized because of their subjective nature. 35
I address the construction and reconstruction of identities by employing varied theoretical approaches in order to understand the representations of the Border Patrol agents and immigrants in the border region. I am specifically looking to see how the meaning of representations changes depending on the context in which they present themselves.
In order to analyze the meaning of these representations in regard to the above- mentioned notions, I use Irving Goffman's concept of "framing". Much of Goffman´s research involves personal interactions and in Frame Analysis: An Essay on the
Organization of Experience, he studies the manner in which social interactions are produced based on faҫades or frames of our daily life. In situating my work within
Goffman's theoretical approach, I understand frames as constructions of reality that are articulated and acquire meaning once they associate with others. All social encounters or activities can be considered from various frames or faҫades that are related to each other.
These frames are later used as models to refer to other frames. These frames can be organized symbolically by their social, national or personal importance. It is through these frames that as interlocutors we project distinctive personal characteristics and set the conditions for interaction.
Frames are part of bigger structures and in order to function they have to be played with specific keys which are "the set of conventions by which a given activity, one already meaningful in terms of some primary framework, is transformed by the participants to be something quite else" (Goffman 43-44). These keys are considered the signals that allow us to interpret the interaction or "keying" between two subjects. 36
Framing is an activity that is done individually. On the other hand, keying is a process that is done collectively and socially. In order for all these concepts to be put into practice, all the participants have to have a sense of awareness or intersubjectivity.
According to Scheff, “Goffman’s discussion implies that a subjective context usually involves more than a single frame. Rather it is likely to be an assembly of frames, one fitting within or merely added to the other” (90). The content frames are then organized by individuals or groups when they scan through a bank of memories, searching for words, and images they possess mentally and then join the components together to make meaning of the situation. In order to understand these representations, it is necessary for many participants to recognize or identify some of the same familiar patterns.
Goffman also refers to footing as the “presuppositions held in common by all persons in dialogue in a given society-idea of the attitude of everyday life applicable not only to specific interaction but to the assumptive worlds of entire societies” (30). If I follow Goffman’s theoretical framework for frames and footing, I can propose that contexts can be defined as immediately available events which are compatible with one frame understanding or footing and incompatible with others. This means that the subjective and intersubjective context or background is often so complex that it requires an assembly of premises done by all those participating within its space. I will refer back to this theoretical approach for my analysis on frames and framing inside the NBPM in
Chapter 4.
In his writings on structuralism, linguistics scholar Ferdinand de Saussure located meaning in the languages system when he saw it as single and fixed. In many instances, 37
meaning in the languages is not building upon itself but more of a single event that is constantly changing. The participants do not construct meaning on the event itself but see the event as fixed and manipulated into a different meaning (Macdonald and Fyfe
108-109). From a poststructuralist perspective, the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida saw all meaning as produced by a dual process of difference and deferral (Macdonald and
Fyfe 108-109). The effect of representation, in which meaning is apparently fixed, is only temporary and retrospective in its fixing. According to this theory, in the process of meaning exists a negotiation where participants pick and choose what they want to give meaning to or represent. These two theoretical frameworks are important because they present two different ways in which meaning is created in the museum. The museum's display of its art exhibits can be read using a structuralist approach because they seek to provide meaning as single and fixed. However, contrary to the purpose of the museum, the spectator or visitor interprets the exhibit in such a way whereby meaning is not fixed
(stable), that is we can use a poststructuralist approach to better understand the experience. All the visitors to the museum engage in this double process and that is why this museum becomes so powerful as it perpetuates a dominant ideology; but, at the same time, the spectators can decode and deconstruct.
In “Culture, community, nation," Stuart Hall says that culture is about shared meaning. Language is the medium in which we make sense of things, in which meaning is produced and exchanged. Meanings can only be shared through our common access to language. Therefore, language is central to meaning and culture and has always been referred to as the key to cultural values and meanings. But how does language construct 38
meanings? How does it sustain a dialogue between participants which enables them to build up a culture of shared understandings and so interpret the world in roughly the same ways? Language is able to do this because it operates as a system of representations. In language, we use signs and symbols: sounds, words, images, and objects. These stand for or represent to other people our concepts, ideas and feelings. Language is a medium through which thoughts, ideas, and feeling are represented in culture (Hall 1). Processes of meaning-making have played the central role in my research because it’s through the analysis of symbols and meanings that I am able to understand the culture that is being represented in the National Border Patrol Museum. Through a process of reading these representations I can build a story of what the museum is trying to tell. The word
“culture” is used to refer to whatever is distinctive about the way we live as people, a community, a nation or a social group. Culture can also be used to describe what shared values we might have within that community or social group.
The analysis of meanings and symbols is important because it exposes ones culture. Culture is concerned with the production and the exchange of meanings between the members of a community or group. In order to belong to the same culture, one needs to interpret the world in roughly the same ways and can express themselves, their thoughts and feelings about the world, in ways which will be understood by people within the same environment. This means that culture depends on its participants understanding what is happening around them, and making sense, in broadly similar ways. In cultures, there is always a great diversity of meanings about any topic, and more than one way of interpreting or representing it. Culture is about feelings, 39
attachments and emotions as well as concepts and ideas. It is the participants in a culture who give meaning to people, objects and events and it is these same participants that continuously interact to keep their culture active.
As I mentioned previously, the title Mean Green: A Visual Cultural Analysis of the National Border Patrol Museum, was chosen because “Mean Green” is the terminology used by the Border Patrol agents to refer to themselves as an object
(machine) in action. The Border Patrol has used the word “mean” as a rhetorical strategy that allows it to move from a defensive to an offensive position (Barrera 169). This particular terminology intrigued me the manner in which we use language and how it enacts power. Because of this, I started to employ discourse analysis in understanding certain aspects of the representations in the NBPM.
Discourse analysis is very important in understanding the dynamic and representations within the NBPM. Gillian Rose discusses Michel Foucault's conceptualization of discourse as "groups of statements which structure the way a thing is thought, and the way we act on the basis of that thinking [...] a particular knowledge about the world which shapes how the world is understood and how things are done in it"
(136). The "meanings of any one discursive image or text depend not only on that one text or image, but also on the meanings carried by other images and texts" (Rose, G.
136). Gillian Rose says about Foucault and his concern with power that discourse is powerful in a very particular way because it is productive. She also states that human subjects, objects, relations, and places are produced by discourse.
40
Museology and Spatial Theory: The Production and Re-Appropriation of Space
The importance of space and the re-appropriation of this specific space by the dominant culture as well as the continued ideological dominion are important factors in the research for my dissertation. There are several instances, of which I will discuss in the other chapters, where the NBPM can be understood to be involved in a process of production and re-appropriations of space to present a series of exhibits. For the purpose of this chapter, I will only address the theoretical approach to the study of these exhibitions.
In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre finds that space has more to do with the intentions of people than anything else. Lefebvre has discussed space as a social product. In order to further understand what he meant when discussing space as a social product, I have to understand that “space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action; that in addition to being a means of productions it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power; yet, that, as such, it escapes in part from those who would make use of it" (Lefebvre 26). In order to understand what is happening inside the NBPM, I find Lefebvre's words useful, “an already produced space can be decoded, can be read” (Lefebvre 17). If I recall from the discussion of Visual
Culture Studies, all representation engages a process of encoding and decoding, thus, all spectators (viewers, visitors to the museum) are engaged in a process of signification or meaning-making. It is my understanding that there might not be a general consensus of these particular codes, but specific codes may exist that help established certain symbols.
For example, the museum intends to “plan and organize society rationally” by imposing 41
measures of political ideology, historical background and the class origins of those in power (Lefebvre 23). This space presents itself in the center of a society that establishes a nationalistic rhetoric in a territory known for its nation-state empowerment; by doing so, it is dominating any other social or cultural sphere and neutralizing whatever resistance may be present. There is a provoked opposition between the subjects represented inside the museum and the subjects represented outside of the NBPM space.
These differences will never be silenced because both sides work hard to continue to have a presence in the border area. Social spaces, like the NBPM, incorporate social actions, both collective and individual. From the point of view of these subjects, the behavior around their space is very important: within it they develop, give expression to themselves, and encounter prohibitions from the other subjects. The museum as a social space may work as a tool for the analysis of our society.
Lefebvre presents a triangle of power relations that occur in a particular space: spatial practice, representation of space and representational spaces. These power relations happen one after the other depending on the process of signification. The first relation is what he refers to spatial practice. He states: “spatial practice… embraces production and reproductions, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation. Spatial practice ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion. In terms of social space, and of each member of a given society’s relationship to that space, this cohesion implies a guaranteed level of competence and a specific performance” (Lefebvre 33). This relation occurs in the first instances of contact with the 42
space. In the NBPM, this relation presents itself from the beginning when the visitor walks into the museum and visualizes and intents to makes sense of what he is seeing.
The second power relation is the representation of space. Lefebvre states that representations of space are “tied to the relations of productions and to the order which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to frontal relations” (33). Once the visitor has come in and made sense of the product in the museum, he/she starts to internalize the material presented and begins to assign signs, codes and relations to the objects he/she observed.
The third power relation occurs in representational spaces: “Representational spaces, embodying complex symbolisms, sometimes coded, sometimes not, linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life, as also to art (which may come eventually to be defined less as a code of space than as a code of representational spaces)” (Lefebvre
33). This last power relation occurs when the visitor has left the museum. This is where the relation is based on subjectivity because the visitor takes the signs and codes assigned in the second power relation, and he codes and decodes them in their own social space.
The three power relations have helped me understand the process of acknowledgment that all participants go through when visiting the NBPM.
In its simplest form, the NBPM has presented an opportunity for all visitors to view a part of culture and life within its walls. As a scholar, for me the museum has become a social tool that permits me to view a side of history, the use space, and the constructions of identities through varied theoretical approaches like Border Studies,
Ethnic Studies and Visual Cultural Studies, among others. Being able to do this has 43
allowed me to situate and visualize the different representations exhibited in the museum and study them in an effort to understand the interaction and dynamic in the border region.
44
CHAPTER 2
HISTORY OF THE BORDER AND THE CREATION OF
THE BORDER PATROL MUSEUM
The National Border Patrol Museum has become an important historical icon of the border region because its visitors are able to read and understand the culture, traditions and history of the border through the representations displayed in the museum.
Many of these representations have become iconic to the border rhetoric and they have become instilled as part of the daily lives of those who live in the border.
The NBPM offers many different views and representations of the border, such as the ones presented of the Border Patrol agent, the undocumented immigrant, the drug- dealer and human smuggler, the cowboy from the Old West, and many more.
Referencing historical events helps identify specific representations and aid in understanding their origins and presence. Even though the focus of my research is not history itself, I do use many historical facts as a base for my analysis. In this chapter I discuss historical events that occurred in the frontier, the borderlands and the border region located in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Presenting a historical framework of the border region allows me to demonstrate that the conflicts in the border are not new and have been part of the border dynamic for centuries. In addition, I reference the different representations in our history and discuss how they have become such a strong influence for the National Border Patrol Museum.
I follow this historical framework with a discussion on the establishment of The
Fraternal Order of Retired Border Patrol Officers (FORBPO), which leads to a discussion 45
of the origins of the National Border Patrol Museum. I end this chapter with a historical overview of the establishment of the Border Patrol and an analysis of the context of such agency in the border region.
The Border: A Relationship between the U.S. and Mexico
Mediating the borders has become a skill for those that inhabit the region. In some instances, the borders are located within the limits of the nation state and there is no need to leave this country to experience them. In the cases when one leaves the United
States, one is confronted with a region where the first world meets the third world, as is the case of the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The notion of Manifest Destiny has also become a central component in understanding the border dynamic because as history has shown, it has shaped the border as we know it today.
The border region has been discussed in many different ways, and each of these ways has placed it in a specific time and space in history. Historian David Lorey has offered a temporal or chronological distinction to explain the point of contact between the
U.S. and Mexico:
(1) a frontier period, or a period of multiple, interpenetrating frontiers,
lasting from contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the end
of the colonial years;
(2) a borderlands era from 1803 through Mexican independence in 1821 to
the end of the U.S.-Mexican war in 1848; and
(3) the years since 1848, for which a distinct U.S.-Mexican border region
can be clearly identified. This third period is divided into two parts: 1848 46
to 1880s (after which the railroad linked the area to world markets for
border products), and the 1880s to the 1990s (from the major economic
boom along the boundary to the regulated integration provided by NAFTA
a century later). (8)
The frontier, the borderlands and the border were all established in the middle of conflicts and will most likely always be part of the conflicts of those living in the border.
However, it is only recently that these conflicts have intensified due to the fight for territorial rights between government agencies, drug cartels, vigilante groups, non-profit organizations and residents of the border. They seem to be new conflicts because of the manner in which they are presented; however, these conflicts can be traced back to when the border was established to its current state. Mexico is struggling to maintain control of its territory and the United States government is unable to help even though it maintains a major economic and political interest. Furthermore, the ease in which we watch from the other side of the border is unsettling because it only proves the delusional sense of security that is provided by the presence of our government in the division line. We feel protected because the Border Patrol, Customs, the Army and fence will protect and watch over us. This only proves that we have forgotten our history and the effects of the conflictive power relations with other countries.
How many of us have wondered about the origins of these conflicts? How many of us have questioned if there is anything we can do to help? How much can the Mexican and U.S. governments really do to alleviate the current state of violence and crime?
These questions are only a reflection of what the border has always been; a place of 47
conflict, negotiation and compromise. It should not be surprising to know that the conflicts and struggles for territorial rights are nothing new to the border region. If we take a look at our history, we will find an infinite amount of narratives that depict the conflictive relations established in the region. The narratives by settlers of the New
World help us understand our history as a nation. The conflicts and struggles in the border are not new and it is only a matter of time before we start understanding where these conflicts will take Mexico and the United States.
The differences between the people that lived in the border regions in the United
States and Mexico have been outlined and studied prior to Spanish conquest. Original text by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, are only some of the chronicles that have presented us with an overview of the different conflicts and diversities confronted by the population that resided in the frontier after the arrival of the conquistadores. Later in the chapter, Frederick Jackson Turner and David J. Weber serve as backdrop when I contextualize the conflicts and struggles in our history and present them in a manner to reflect the circumstances of our current existence in the border.
In his writing, Núñez Cabeza de Vaca addresses his eight-year experience in the
New World. His work has served as an anthropological and ethnographic reflection of the times. He describes how territorial wars as well as racial divides, established new forms of life in the frontier just to help them cohabitate and guarantee their survival. His recollections date back to the early 1500´s. It is since then that the conflicts in the border became evident. In La Relación, whose original title was Naugragios y comentarios,
Núñez Cabeza de Vaca refers to these conflicts from the beginning of their arrival to the 48
New World. In Chapter 3 of La Relación, he talks about the indigenous population named the Apalachee who originated in Florida. He describes his first encounter with this tribe, “the next day the Indians of that village came and spoke to us, but we did not understand them since we had no interpreter. They made many signs and threatening gestures and it seemed to us that they were telling us to leave that land” ( La Relación website). This is only one example of the many incidents narrated in his work. Núñez
Cabeza de Vaca addresses several instances where the native population of the region was very explosive upon and due to their arrival. In other references, he narrates about the mistrust, reluctance and disposition of the natives towards all the settlers.
In La Relación, Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (1528-1536) explains how their arrival to the New World proved to be a challenge in his battles with the many indigenous populations:
Y con tanto denuedo y presteza nos acometieron, que llegaron a nos poner
fuego a las casas que estábamos. Mas como salimos, huyeron y
acogiéronse a las lagunas que tenían muy cerca. Y por esto y por los
grandes maizales que había, no les podimos hacer daño, salvo a uno que
matamos. (58)
He refers to one instance when the natives set fire to the houses they were using. The settlers ran after them only to lose them to the lakes in the region. In this occurrence, the settlers ended up killing only one if the tribe members. These encounters between Núñez
Cabeza de Vaca and his men show how the contact between the Spaniards and the indigenous population set the tone for the type of relations developing in the borderlands. 49
This is a tone that continues to be persistent in the manner in which the border relations develop.
Another important chronicler is Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá because his narratives and the actions he describes continue to be referenced and still affect many living in the
Southwest of the United States. In his poem, Historia de la Nueva México (1610), he describes his firsthand encounter with the first European settlement and his experience under the rule of Don Juan de Oñate. Pérez de Villagrá joined Oñate who was accompanied by 130 soldiers along with their families and the Franciscan missionaries on their first expedition to New Mexico (Lopez 43). Pérez de Villagrá stayed in New
Mexico for one year and returned to Spain where he wrote the poem. The poem, which defends Oñate, was written in response to charges made against Oñate for cruelty against settlers, indigenous communities and for the burning down and destruction of the Acoma
Pueblo (Lopez 44). He was accused and held responsible for amputating the feet of many males of the Acoma Pueblo. In the following excerpt of the poem, the reader can easily picture the devastation and loss of life that occurred during the pilgrimage by Pérez de
Villagrá. The atrocities that the settler encountered in his arrival and the atrocities perpetuated on to the native population have been recorded and revisited in writings like
Historia de la Nueva México in En Otra voz:
[...] No de otra suerte, juntos todos vimos,
De súbito, gran suma de difuntos,
Tullidos, mancos, cojos, destroncados.
Abiertos por los pechos, mal heridos, 50
Rasgadas las cabezas y los brazos,
Abiertos por mil partes y las carnes
Vertiendo viva sangre, agonizando
Las inmortales almas despedían,
Dexando allí los cuerpos palpitando. (22)
Pérez de Villagrá describes how all of those in his voyage suddenly encountered numerous amounts of dead, crippled, wounded in the chest, head and arms, and the agonizing bodies spewing blood. This image of the New World is one that permeates throughout the writings of the time.
The narratives by Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and Pérez de Villagrá are still told today in the many regions of the Southwest. In both cases, these narratives "contribute to the historical and social formation of the Chicano identity at some level" (Herrera viii).11
Oñate´s representation in New Mexico is one that continues to cause mixed emotions.
He is so beloved by many that continue to establish his legacy by building statues and memorials in his honor; moreover, he is disliked and dishonored by many that continue to destroy those same statues used to praise him. In Española, New Mexico, during the
400th anniversary of the first Spanish settlement, a group of people severed the statue honoring Don Juan de Oñate; and in El Paso, Texas, the name on a statue in the airport was changed to The Equestrian after Oñate´s name was removed (Strykowki). To this
11 The chronicles by Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and Pérez de Villagrá have been referenced in other Chicano and Hispanic literature anthologies and books written and edited by Dr. Nicolás Kanellos and Dr. Charles Tatum. Please refer to En otra voz: Antología de la literatura hispana de los Estados Unidos and Chicano and Chicana Literature: Otra voz del pueblo. 51
day, Oñate has not been forgiven for his crimes, including the death of some 800 residents of the Acoma Pueblo.
All of these narratives are only some examples of the type of relationship established between the European settlers and the natives in the New World. Many of the atrocities committed to the native populations and to the inhabitants in what was the borderlands are still part of the rhetoric in the region today. These narratives show the dichotomy between those fighting for what they believed as theirs: territory, rights and identity. These are only two of the earlier major works that are being studied today that reflect the tumultuous relationships in the border region. The belief that any country has been established under a democracy has always been the dominant idea. Speaking of this country specifically, as the research of historian Frederick Jackson Turner proposes, the frontier precipitated the assimilation of immigrants and caused a nationalizing effect that promoted democracy; however, the manner in which this country has reached this point is anything but democratic.
The contact between the settlers and the native population has been the central topic of study for many historians. Frederick Jackson Turner has written, not only about his views of the indigenous population, but also about his understanding of the border dynamic. I find his approach to be critical of the frontier but one that continues to speak of the border as it is represented today. Turner refers to the frontier as the first place where the United States as a country “had to meet its Indian question, its question of disposition of the public domain, of the means of intercourse with older settlements, of the extension of political organization, of religious and educational activity” (Turner 11). 52
For the first time in history, the first settlements allowed for the questioning of the Native
American population and the validity of the territory they occupied. Most importantly, the frontier provided a space for political and religious reorganization and opportunity for those coming in from Europe and escaping the persecutions for their political and religious views.
Turner contextualized the frontier as “the outer edge of the wave – the meeting point between savagery and civilization” (Turner 3). The frontier became the site where the continuous battle, civilized vs. uncivilized, takes place and only one survives. The notion of Manifest Destiny, of which I address in Chapters 1 and 4, becomes a central ideology in Turner´s historical reference. The idea that the New World is available for its taking, led many to believe that coming and claiming this land would be sufficient without considering the groups of people already living here. Turner says about U.S. history, “The United States lies like a huge page in the history of society. Line by line as we read this continental page from West to East we find the record of social evolution. It begins with the Indian and the hunter; it goes on to tell of the disintegration of savagery by the entrance of the trader, the pathfinder of civilization” (Turner 11). Furthermore, the belief that it was the settlers that brought civilization to these lands has been a very subjective way of understanding history. The importance of reflecting on what is understood by civilization has become a central focus for this chapter. I can recall being taught about the uncivilized Native American savagery through my formative years. It is this perception that has continued to feed the stereotypes that are still persistent today. 53
President Woodrow Wilson addressed the idea of expansionism when he stated the following:
This great pressure of a people moving always to new frontiers, in search
of new lands, new power, the full freedom of a virgin world, has ruled our
course and formed our policies like a Fate. It gave us, not Louisiana
alone, but Florida also. It forced war with Mexico upon us, and gave us
the coasts of the Pacific. It swept Texas into the Union. It made far
Alaska a territory of the United States. Who shall say where it will end?
(726)
Even though the first encounter with the New World involved the contact in the coasts, it did not take long before the sentiment in the frontier spread to the border region. The
U.S. – Mexico border was not in any way exempt from the violence and conflict in the fight for territory. The border has presented us with the space to connect; a space where worlds collide. This collision has not been recent and yet it has always seems to surprise those that see it on a day to day basis.
In the early 1800’s, the struggle for territory becomes apparent when several countries start negotiating over the land rights. The territory that we know as the border is composed by several states that have changed ownership in different occasions. Before
I discuss specific states, I want to refer to the independence of Mexico from Spain. The independence of Mexico from Europe established new boundaries and started to expand its rule to the areas of what we now know as Texas. This particular area, which would 54
become part of the state of Coahuila, joined the battle for territory with the Native
American tribes in a struggle for land (Meyer and Sherman 335-336).
In 1820, Moses Austin claimed his rights as citizen to the lands that once were
Spanish, and requested he be awarded land for him and 300 families (Vazquez 50).
Moses Austin dies before he can claim these lands. His son Stephen Austin is then awarded the land and granted the move of the 300 families to their new home. Stephen
Austin agreed to follow all the laws and regulations established by this new contract. The
Mexican government agreed as long as he served as a buffer between them and the attacks from the native populations.
The armed forces invaded other states in the country, such as California, parts of
New Mexico and Arizona, with the exception of Texas since the “former Mexican province had rebelled in 1836 and entered the American union in 1845-an event that, in itself, contributed to the war between Mexico and the United States” (Weber 106). The battle between the Apaches, Mexican citizens and the Texans intensified and resulted in the Mexican-American War.
In order to end the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, President Polk proposed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that granted the United States with the states of
California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and parts of Wyoming and
Oklahoma. In 1853, through the Gadsden Purchase, the United States was able to get the territory in southern New Mexico and southern Arizona prompting railroad access across the country. The success of the United States in acquiring the land was facilitated by
Mexico’s lack of connection between the frontier and the rest of the nation. The idea of 55
center vs. periphery becomes central when the Mexican government is perceived as abandoning the territory in the borderlands regions. This left the territory unattended, and therefore, vulnerable and available to those who set foot in the area.
All of these events have not only influenced but continue to shape the border history. Kathleen Anne Lytle Hernandez argues that the boundaries have become divided by nationality and race, due to Manifest Destiny. In 1846, the United States goes into war with Mexico for a territory that divided what she refers to “the free white race” and the “half-savage, half-civilized race of Mexico” (3). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is only the beginning to tracing the borderline that has divided the American white race and the Mexican indigenous race. It has not been the physical lines that have been dividing all of us. It was not a fence, a wall, a river or wire that has divided the border people; it has been their belief in nationality, race and ethnicity that parted them. The Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo reduced Mexicans to second-class citizens. The treaty originally contained a set of guarantees that were suppose to protect all Mexican citizens that stayed in the United States; these were quickly violated. The border has given testimony to the many different struggles and conflicts that have separated people in the region.
According to data presented by Huntington, after 1965, Mexican immigration increased consistently. In the 1970's, an estimated 640,000 Mexicans legally migrated to this country. In the 1980's, the number increased to 1,656,000 and in 1990's to 2,249,000. At the end of the 1990's, Mexicans accounted for 25 percent of the total for legal immigration (223). 56
Even though my emphasis for this chapter is more focused on the creation of the
Border Patrol and the representations of it in the National Border Patrol Museum, I have referred to some of the historical events and immigration movements in history that have influenced the dominant U.S. ideology that is portrayed in the museum. As part of my revision of historical background I want to emphasize the importance of the border in El
Paso, Texas. Most importantly, I want to emphasize why this city has become such an iconic location for the Border Patrol and for the National Border Patrol Museum.
El Paso, Texas: Looking back from the 1900’s to today
The city of El Paso, Texas, has been, historically, an important location for the
United States and Mexico. This city and its people have seen its share of conflicts and struggles and have become culturally isolated and autonomous from the rest of Texas.
How is it that the people of El Paso have managed to do this? How has the relationship between the center and periphery benefitted the city? Most of the locals find it strange that even though El Paso is part of Texas, it has no resemblance to any other Texan city, both near and far from the border. El Paso has created a dynamic that might seem peculiar to some because of its richness in history, culture, and governance. The city follows the regulations established in the state of Texas; however, when visiting one might feel as if stepping into the Mexico of the 1960’s. The neighborhoods, businesses and culture, in many ways have been preserved for all to enjoy. Historian David Lorey says about border society, the “forms of cultural expression are as diverse as the region’s population, ranging from habits of dress and social style, to celebrations of community solidarity, to milestones in popular music, film, poetry, and painting” (140). How is it 57
that El Paso has managed to maintain such cultural autonomy from both the United States and Mexico? How is it that socially, economically and politically it manages to come on top? In order to understand what happened to El Paso and how the city managed to survive many of the conflicts it has been presented with, I must refer to the dynamic in the border and the different states prior to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
I want to address the case of California. Herbert Eugene Bolton, founder of the
Borderlands school, suggested that the californios have always been seen as superior to the other Mexicans because they always remained isolated from other regions of the country and had a greater sense of independence (quoted in Weber 37, 1990). Even though he is referring to the territory in California, I believe this is the case for the northern frontier of Mexico which part now lies in the United States. As a border scholar and border resident of several of these cities, I can attest that this is the case for cities like
Yuma, Nogales, El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville.
El Paso is unique not only because it has managed to survive and thrive like many other cities, it has managed to generate a separate identity and culture, i.e. the pachuco identity and the establishment of the Border Patrol. In order to understand how this city became such an important part of U.S. history and why the NBPM staff holds it in such regard, I discuss the origins of the city from the 1900’s to today.
El Paso, Texas has been an important key to the development of the border as it is known today. Texas has proven to be strong-willed from the moment it gained its independence. The independence of Texas only proved how dynamic the border region could be, one day being part of Mexico, then becoming autonomous, to forming part of 58
the American Union and United States. Because of this exchange in territory, El Paso has been defined and redefined in many different ways. Lorey, in his book The U.S. –
Mexican Border in the Twentieth Century presents the border in 3 different categories. In my opinion, these categories have been represented in various ways in the city of El Paso.
As mentioned earlier, the first category has been known as the frontier period.
This includes the period of contact between the European settlers and the Native
Americans. The frontier period for El Paso occurred when Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca passed through in 1535 during his expedition and Juan de Oñate claimed the pass and laid the groundwork for Spanish rule in 1598 (Texas State Hitorical Association website).
These are two of the most important settlers to have traveled through the territory known as El Paso.
The second category known as the borderlands was referred to as the territory in dispute through the Mexican independence in 1821 and before the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo in 1848. El Paso became an important region because of the success in agriculture, ranching and commerce. Trading posts in the area became an important aspect of the culture, identity and economy of the city since many of the traders with
Chihuahua came here for negotiations and trade agreements (Texas State Hitorical
Association website). At the beginning, downtown El Paso was the location where many business men came to do their small trades; this culture of business transactions and trades still continues to this day at a much larger scale. For instance, the generations of fronterizos (borderlands people) had a great impact on the economy when they came to
El Paso to purchase goods and took them to regions all over Mexico. In his book, David 59
Lorey talks about the economy in the border region between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in the 1960´s:
By the mid 1960s the number of Mexicans shopping on the U.S. side of
the border had begun to grow dramatically, outpacing the number of U.S.
citizens who shopped south of the border. Studies indicated that 70
percent of Juarenses visited El Paso to shop, their expenditures on food,
clothing, and furniture constituting 62 percent of the total spent on these
items in El Paso. (104)
The reality of the borderlands region has changed due to the current state of violence and crime in Mexico.
Lorey proposes a third category, the border region which refers to the Mexican border division that was finally identified after 1848. Before, in 1846, “a force of
American volunteers defeated the Mexicans at the battle of Brazito, entered El Paso del
Norte, and invaded Chihuahua” (Texas State Historical Association website). These acts of violence prior to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were the turning point for the
United States and Mexico. The Treaty officially ended the Mexican War, established the division line between the United States and Mexico. This act fixed El Paso as a border town along with its sister city, Juarez.
In 1881, the first transcontinental railroad linked the eastern seaboards to the western seaboards of the United States and “tied Mexican communities more closely to the United States than to the Mexican interior” (Lorey 37). These Mexican communities developed a sense of loyalty for the United States because it was there where the families 60
were able to sustain their homes and life for their children. After the arrival of the railroads, El Paso was also exposed to modernity when the city became a “western boomtown, it also became Six Shooter Capital and Sin City where scores of saloons, dance halls, gambling establishments, and houses of prostitution lined the main streets”
(Texas State Historical Association). The reputation of the sinful city still continues to haunt it today because many of those traveling to the border came to fulfill many of their fantasies. Lorey writes: “the iron horse significantly boosted the economic importance of the region” (Lorey 37). The center vs. periphery played an important factor in the development of the El Paso border region because it “boasted valuable natural resources, a network of rail lines, and inexpensive labor, but control of its economy was in the hands of bankers, investors, and corporations in New York, Chicago, Mexico City, and
London” (Lorey 39). Once again, El Paso has proven its endurance when it manages to thrive on its own even when it was being drained of its resources. This is why it has been as strong and independent as the californios were in their time.
These divisions of the territory between the United States and Mexico have also been interpreted differently between the people who remain living in them. This land has been studied and observed under many different categories and disciplines. This territory has been referred to as the area where the Spanish and Mexican cultures came into contact with the European and Native-American cultures. Furthermore, it has been referred to as the land acquired through Manifest Destiny and the land of sin where anything is possible. In regards to the people and society in the border, no one has stated it better than author Miguel Tinker Salas when he states, “Border society reflect[s] an 61
ongoing process of conflict, exchange and adaptation, and reinvention propelled by class, the character of economic exchange, the area’s relation to the national economy, gender and immigration” (quoted in Lorey 140). The manner in which all border cities are referred to never really gives justice to the importance of them in our cultural, political and economical history.
In the early 1900´s, El Paso saw an exponential growth in population due to the immigration of families of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Due to the increase in immigration waves of Mexican immigrants, one of the most iconic events in the El Paso area has been the establishment of the Border Patrol in 1924. This has been a turning point for the families residing in the border because it forever changed the border culturally, politically and economically.
Immigration and the Creation of the Border Patrol as a Deterring Tool
In this chapter, I have thus far discussed the presence of violence in the border due to the battle for territory on both the U.S. and Mexico side. These battles also sought a sense of security for those living the border region and in many instances militarized the border by agents of official and unofficial origin. Even though the struggle for the territory has been ongoing the immigration problem in the United States has only recently become a major problem and concern during the 20th century. Prior to 1848, the immigration waves from Mexico had not been an issue since many of those crossing the border were doing it on a daily basis for work, school or commerce. "Early U.S. immigration legislation (1917 and 1924) 62
generally made exceptions for Mexican migrants; only in 1929 did it become a crime to enter the United States from Mexico without documentation” (Lorey 162). The original
Border Patrol agency was established in the El Paso, Texas region. According to the
NBPM, the United States Border Patrol was established after Congress passed the Labor
Appropriations Act of 1924 which gave the agency the necessary funding to employ a total of 450 inspectors (see figure 2.1). As discussed earlier in this chapter, even though border surveillance was not established until 1924, problems with immigration and border conflicts had risen since the early 1800’s.
Currently, the conflicts in the border have escalated due to the violence perpetuated in Mexico. The conflicts between the two countries have not always been because of U.S. or Mexican citizens.
Prior to the Labor Appropriation Act of
192412, the United States had already Figure 2.1 attempted to establish a form of border surveillance with the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6 of 1882; which for the first time established the category of illegal immigrant in the United States (Sadowski-Smith 72).
The persecution of the Chinese continued from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. It wasn’t until liquor and human smuggling were a major concern that the government decided to implement a more structured form of control in the border. This led to what
12 The Immigration Act of 1924 was first established to bring attention to border enforcement. It was the Labor Appropriation Act of 1924 that officially established the U.S. Border Patrol. 63
many have referred to as border policing. In 1903, the Chinese Division was created and many officers were appointed as Chinese Inspectors (Sadowski-Smith 73). This decision later brought forth the integration of mounted watchmen and inspectors that became known as the border mounted guards.
Figure 2.2
Many of the first inspectors with the Chinese Division had been members of the
Texas Rangers and local sheriff deputies. One of the most renowned members was
Jefferson Davis Milton. He was one of the first Mounted Chinese Inspectors that in
1924, helped establish the Border Patrol.13 Prior to joining the Mounted Chinese
Inspectors, Milton had been a Texas Ranger, an Indian fighter, and a Chief of Police. He had chased down bank robbers and cattle thieves, bandits and Indians. After countless battles, Milton always returned alive while many of his adversaries did not (Lytle
13 In order to establish the Border Patrol, the U.S. government dismantled the Immigration Service’s Mounted Guardsmen Chinese Division that had been created in 1903 (Lytle Hernandez 175). 64
Hernandez 19). Today, Milton is still remembered as the forefather of the U.S. Border
Patrol.
Jefferson Davis Milton, seen as the forefather of the Border Patrol, was also responsible for establishing the identity for the Border Patrol agents. His “heroic” acts as a border inspector helped establish the BP agent as one who serves to protect and defend the border as well as its culture, racial identity and traditions. His experiences with the border region allowed Milton to develop a sense of superiority and racism when it came to addressing the other races he came into contact with in the border; including Native
Americans and Mexicans. As a white male, Milton was able to establish his personae by highlighting those aspects that made him superior to the other people he came into contact with; a white male employed by a powerful government agency was on the loose.
The Border Patrol was established in 1924, and from that moment, the agency has been involved in the racial and national conflicts within the United States and Mexico. It has been the Border Patrol agents that are reinforcing the border security. In some instances, they have done it with the help of the Army and other government agencies.
Subconsciously, the concepts of racism, expansionism and conquest have always formed part of the Border Patrol ideology because they are to protect these beliefs in the name of the U.S. Furthermore, these concepts have affected the way the country and the agency have been historically perceived by other countries and by its own citizens. Many of these perceptions have been established because of the procedures and strategies taken by the Border Patrol to reinforce the border. I name only a few of the most popular border protection strategies reinforced by the Border Patrol. 65
There have been several strategies used to control the border. Many of these have been controversial because they have infringed in both human and civil rights of those involved. One example is the infamous Operation Wetback of 1953-1955, that "deported two million Mexicans (and many U.S. citizens of Mexican heritage) to the region across the boundary” (Lorey 121). This was a repatriation effort to force those workers of the
Bracero Program that overstayed their permit or those that crossed illegally to return to
Mexico. Operation Wetback has always been remembered with resentment by the
Braceros and their families. Part of the resentment comes from the fact that many of these men were deported when they had not been paid and had reported to be suffering the consequences of bad labor conditions. In 1986, the U.S. government passes the
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) aimed at restricting illegal immigration and sanctioned employers of undocumented immigrants. Operation Blockade, which was renamed Operation Hold the Line a year later, and was enacted to established blockades between the U.S.-Mexico border.
In 1994, Operation Hold the Line in El Paso established a blockade in the U.S.-
Mexico border. Agents were stationed every quarter mile. Operation Gatekeeper was conducted in 1994 in San Ysidro, Texas. It was the first attempt to standardize the militarization of the border region; and was later used as the sample for other operations to follow. Regarding Operation Gatekeeper, President Clinton stated, "since 1992, we have increased our Border Patrol by over 35 percent; deployed underground sensors, infrared night scopes, and encrypted radios; built miles of new fences; and installed massive amounts of new lighting" (quoted in Akers Chacón & Davis 203). Operation 66
Gatekeeper also established checkpoints, created the first immigration court and appointed a Border Czar who introduced a computerized identification system.
Operation Safeguard in 1999 assigned more agents to Arizona and a new fence was constructed near Nogales reducing illegal entries. Operation Streamline in 2005 targeted those who entered the U.S. in violation of law and penalizes them for 180 days of incarceration. In 2006, the virtual border fence cost $1 billion of taxpayer’s money.
The fence only covered 53 miles of protection. Under President Obama, this operation was cancelled in 2011.14 To coincide with the aforementioned operations, the Border
Patrol agency began to strategize how to further establish unity among the agents by creating a fraternity of retired and current Border Patrol officers.
FORBPO and the Foundation of the National Border Patrol Museum
The concept and planning for the museum had been in the works since 1978, when the Fraternal Order of Retired Border Patrol Officers (FORBPO) was established in
Denver, Colorado, in their first meeting on October 25. 15 The Order was looking for a vehicle to continue interacting between themselves as retired and the new and continuing
Border Patrol agents. In 1979, in collaboration with the Border Patrol agency, the Order raised the necessary funds and found a physical site and in 1985 opened the National
Border Patrol Museum (NBPM) and Memorial Library as a tax exempt entity {Section
501 (C) (3)}. The first museum was originally located at the Cortez building in
14 According to the Fox News website, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has canceled the troubled virtual fence project, known as the SBInet, because of delays and technological glitches; furthermore, the U.S. is not able to provide a "single, integrated border security technology solution" but will integrate a new plan that will use different technologies in different areas. 15 All this information is available at the National Border Patrol Museum and the museum’s webpage: http://www.borderpatrolmuseum.com/home.html 67
downtown El Paso, Texas. The Order decided to leave downtown in search of a more
“appropriate” and spacious location. The current location in the outskirts of El Paso was constructed in 1993. The grand opening of the new location took place in April of 1994.
The Order decided to keep the museum in El Paso, Texas because this city plays such a central role in the Border Patrol establishment. Since 1924, the Border Patrol headquarters have been in El Paso because the region has been the busiest zone of legal and illegal crossings, followed shortly by Arizona. The changes in the border dynamic have only reinforced the desire and need of the museum to stay in the El Paso sector.
According to the museum staff, the NBPM has received several offers to leave the border and move to Washington, D.C., offers that they adamantly reject.16 Currently, the site serves as a museum and recruiting center for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. El Paso, Texas has become such an important location for both the museum and government agencies like the Border Patrol because it has had such a strong influence throughout history. Acknowledging and understanding the importance and relevance of El Paso and the relationship between the sister-cities has become a main focus in this chapter. The National Border Patrol
Museum is currently located in El Paso, Texas and according to it administrators, they are planning to stay there for a long period of time. This is in part because the El Paso-
Juarez region has had a rich history and tradition and has become an important factor in the representation of the Border Patrol.
16 This information became available through the numerous talks with the NBPM administrator and staff. 68
History plays a very important part of the NBPM. No visitor can leave the museum space without having an understanding of how much history has influenced many of the exhibits and representations in the museum space. Within its walls, the museums holds a connection to our past as a country and as a people. I have especially addressed the history of the border between the United States and Mexico by focusing on its development as a frontier, borderlands and border. The NBPM has shown all aspects of this development which include the importance of El Paso and surrounding areas for the creation of Border Patrol, FORBPO and the museum itself.
69
CHAPTER 3
LOCUS OF ORDER: SPATIALITY IN NATION BUILDING
AND CULTURAL COMMODIFICATION
The act of visiting museums allows the visitors to experience and learn from many different cultures and environments. One of the things that I note during my visits to the National Border Patrol Museum or any other museum, is that when I am viewing a new painting or visiting a new hall or exhibition, a sense of foreignness overwhelms me.
This strange sensation is so powerful and reminiscent of similar experiences of my childhood when traveling alone or entering a new school. In visiting the NBPM, the experience will be different for each of the individuals that attend. The feeling of foreignness has become a reoccurring aspect of my visit. Every time I am there I question how, what, and why a museum has this effect on me as a scholar and an everyday visitor. These questions have been constant lingering thoughts during my research for this project. I have come to understand that some of the reactions are possibly direct results of my observations affected by past experiences and by my educational background. In deconstructing the museum and its narratives, I have tried to observe the NBPM with a critical vision in order to fully understand the effects that its content and discourse might have on me and on the other visitors.
In order to fully submerge myself in understanding the root of my reaction, this chapter is structured as follows: I first present a personal observational account of my walk through the museum. I describe its content and how it is serving a specific purpose of nation building and commodification of the symbols used in the process. I include a 70
discussion about museums in general and how these are spaces where all things are ordered as means to fulfill a purpose, and transmit messages with multiple MEANings.17
Furthermore, I discuss how the exhibitions, in their use of space and the inclusion and exclusion of artifacts and narratives, are participating in the process of nation building.
The museum’s attempt in nation building has also established imagined communities and reinforced cultural identities, both inside and outside the museum. I also include a section about nation building by relating it to the museum space as one that is contested by those same identities in conflict. I follow my discussion with an analysis of the museum as a heterotopic space and its effects in relation to the nation-state. This section is then followed by my interpretation and analysis of the NBPM as a “panoptic” space and the different forms in which it exercises its power. I end this chapter with a discussion on the commodification of culture and national symbols. The importance and use of spatiality and the museum as a location where things are ordered are the common threads between all the sections in this chapter.
At First Glance
After I started the research for this project, I went back to the NBPM to begin to take copious notes from my observations. It had been several years since I had visited the museum because, as I mentioned earlier, I had trouble understanding my reaction to it and I avoided going back. I was driving down Woodrow Bean Transmountain Road and
I had forgotten how to get to the current location.18 I missed the turn and had to come back around from the opposite direction. It wasn’t because the location is hard to find
17 This discussion is the inspiration for the title of this specific chapter. 18 Please refer to Chapter 1 where I talk about the development and origins of the NBPM. 71
but because there are no signs to guide you to the building. The geographic environment around the building is deserted as if resembling most of the Southwest (see figure 3.1).
The lack of stop lights and traffic only proves
how far in the outskirts of the city it is located.
Things have changed in the last few times I have been there. The museum has constructed a
monument in front of the building that is visible from the moment you drive down
Transmountain Road. Thanks to the monument, Figure 3.1 there is no way anyone can miss the entrance to the museum now. Before entering the building, the 20-feet steel statue of a Border Patrol agent on his horse welcomes you to the museum. The enormity of this statue references the work and master narrative intended to be presented and propagated by the museum.19
With the statue, the museum introduces two dominant representations: the hypermasculine American male and the cowboy in the frontier. Furthermore, both of these representations propagate the master narrative of the hegemonic state.
19 I will discuss and analyze the statue in more detail in Chapter 4 where I address the representations of masculinity and the frontier. I explore what it means to be an American in this country. I focus on analyzing the power relations presented in the museum and studying the different representations of the American male. 72
The current location for the museum seems insignificant and yet, the location and structure of the building hold its greatest importance. The NBPM is located in El
Paso, Texas, a desert and mountainous region that is border sister city to Ciudad Juárez.
The metropolises are divided by the Rio Grande River. The museum is located less than
10 miles from the U.S. Port of Entry, which is protected by an 18-foot fence. The museum’s building is made of steel and concrete and has no windows. At first glance, the building looks like any regular structure with insignificant and unappealing colors (see figure 3.2). The appearance is non-inviting and even threatening. Because of the shape of the building, I was expecting to find a security guard waiting at the door to ask Figure 3.2 for my proof of citizenship. In order to get to the front doors, the visitor has to walk up a set of stairs with rails. The doors have no windows and there is only one access to the building.
I notice that the concept of physical borders is also very present in the construction of the museum. In differing from other museums in the area that provide a sample exhibitions in the entrance halls as a form of introduction to the larger showrooms, the NBPM does not provide a way to look inside and see any of the 73
exhibitions unless the visitor walks through the main double doors. The access to the museum allows the flow and control of traffic coming in and out to be easily supervised.
Once inside, it is too late for the visitor to change his mind about the visit since he will find himself surrounded by artifacts and commodities and standing right in front of the museum staff. There is no choice but to walk in and “enjoy”. Walking up to the museum reminded me of the times I used to come back from Ciudad Juárez and had to declare my legal status at the U.S. Port of Entry. My reaction to this environment is immediate because it takes me back to a different moment and location of my life where my legal status came into question.
The museum curators have done extensive research and have gathered many historical artifacts, records, and memoirs through the collection of oral histories, personal narratives, work diaries, photos, personnel records, uniforms, technology, and many other artifacts that provide an important role in understanding their own history. Through the use of artifacts, art pieces and popular culture representations, the museum provides information that is to be interpreted later by the visitor. Much of this information is provided from the moment one walks through its doors.
The NBPM’s ambiance has become an intricate part of its attraction. At first the visitor becomes overwhelmed by its decorative structure and pungent smell. Once there, a sensation of stepping into the past is quickly overshadowed by the feeling of dread caused by the quantity of objects displayed above and all over the rooms. The museum has no windows, which makes the display rooms feel humid and enclosed. Visitors are made to feel anxious and uncomfortable by the deafening silence that accompanies many 74
of the exhibition halls. The only thing that reminds the visitor of the presence of others is the interruption of echoes afar that move across the rooms. These feelings linger longer than expected and in many cases will have a lasting effect on the visitor’s reaction and interpretation.
With every one of my visits, I keep searching for the aspects of the NBPM that are distracting to me. Unfortunately, the visits only corroborate and strengthen the opinions I had acquired previously. For one, the exhibitions in the museum change how people look at their own immediate environment. What I might consider ordinary things, like many of the artifacts presented at this museum, become unique when placed in this particular environment.20 The museum tour then becomes a model for experiencing life outside of its walls because the knowledge acquired transcends a simple reading. The simplest acts, like purchasing an American flag from the gift shop or a Border Patrol t- shirt, allows the visitors to take the knowledge acquired, reinsert it into their daily life and forever manipulate their surroundings.21
I note that this new form of viewing the NBPM has only occurred after I began to study certain approaches and theories in my primary field, Border Studies (See
Introduction). As a visitor, I am no longer an unaware observer and after every other visit, the messages received have become more evident and strong. It has proven very difficult to allow myself to see the museum with minimal distractions or interferences because doing this, entitles not allowing my particular cultural background and academic history, influence my interpretation of the material presented. This chapter allows me to
20 I address many of these objects in my discussion about race, illegality and citizenship in Chapter 5 21 Please refer to the discussion on cultural commodification at the end of this chapter. 75
reflect on many of the observations and how the NBPM has chosen to present them in the museum floor.
Inside Out: What is a museum?
Museums, in general, are places where artifacts are arranged to fit a desired order.
They are established to provide a location in which the whole “world is ordered” and where visitors understand, interpret and interact with the artifacts and agents involved
(Macdonald and Fyfe 22). According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the role of a museum is “to strengthen cultural identity and consciousness in the face of rapid and world-wide cultural change; to strengthen national identity within an internationalized system of states; and to make use of educational potential of museums in the context of development” (quoted in Macdonald and Fyfe 23). It was during the
European Middle ages that the collection of objects in courts and churches become systematic (Macdonald and Fyfe 27). When museums were first established in the fifteenth century, owners of private collections would set aside a room specifically constructed to exhibit their collections established for their own education and cultivation
(Macdonald and Fyfe 27). This also meant that the collections were of use for the education and cultivation of the owner’s people.
The collections were intended to carry many different representations and to serve as a form of muse, hence the name “museum”, to inspire those developing a culture. In their beginnings, “public museums were instituted by bourgeois reformers with the intent of providing a means of self-improvement to the mass of the population... intended to serve as instruments of peaceable self-reform for urban populations that were becoming 76
increasingly unmanageable” (Ross 339-340). As a result, one cannot look at museums as simple agents or institutions of social control because their complexity goes beyond a simple understanding of the material presented in the collections. Museums today
“remain powerful and subtle authors and authorities whose cultural accounts are not easily dislodged. Museums are socially and historically located; and, as such, they inevitably bear the imprint of social relations beyond their walls and beyond the present”
(Macdonald and Fyfe 4). According to anthropologist Brenda Jo Bright, museums are
“the place where the traffic in art and culture culminates and where objectification, hierarchies, and otherness are displayed. They are also the place where the most public debates about exhibiting are raised and negotiated” (Bright 1). Museums, in general, offer a source for cultural brokers and carriers as well as dealers of culture. In the
NBPM, there are many subjects that come into contact inside and outside of the museum.
The entities represented have been interconnected through the history and context of the border region. The social relations created both inside and outside the NBPM, have allowed for the location to become a contested space in the process of nation building.
The NBPM: Heterotopic Spaces and the Status of the Nation State
In “Culture, community, nation," Stuart Hall argues:
It has been the main function of national cultures which ... are systems of
representations, to represent what is in fact the ethnic hotch-potch of
modern nationality as the primordial unity of ‘one people’; and of their
invented traditions to project the ruptures and conquests, which are their 77
real history, backwards in an apparently seamless and unbroken continuity
towards pure, mythic time. (356)
Samuel P. Huntington stated about identity of nations that it "is not fixed and permanent, and nationalism is not a uniformly pervasive force overriding all else. A nation exists only when a group of people think of themselves as a nation... the significance of their national commitment as compared to other commitments may vary greatly" (Huntington
107). Because of their functions, many nation states have contributed to the ideology that the country is a nation of one culture, one people and one nation. Benedict Anderson presents an imagined community as a "remembered community, a community with an imagined history, and it is defined by its historical memory of itself. No nation exists in the absence of a national history, enshrining in the minds of its people common memories of their travails and triumphs, heroes and villains, enemies and wars, defeats and victories" (quoted in Huntington 115-116). The monumentalization of our imagined history and culture causes museums to perform the national identity.
Museums, in general, have taken many of the same cultural and historical representations used by the country to represent what is most comparable to the message the dominant culture is trying to send. The work enacted by the NBPM is exemplifying the patterns in the representations of a mixture of ethnicities that have been inherited from the dominant culture. The NBPM exhibits photographs and artifacts of Hispanics,
Chinese and German immigrants along with American heroes (in this case Border Patrol agents) as an effort to construct or develop a “nation of one” ideology. 78
The representations of immigrants include photographs that portray the immigrants in criminal activities, held in camps or cells while apprehended by the agents.
The NBPM presents the immigrants as criminalized entities who refuse to participate in the government system. Museums were "instituted by bourgeois reformers with the intent of providing a means of self-improvement to the mass of the population... intended to serve as instruments of peaceable self-reform for urban populations that were becoming increasingly unmanageable” (Ross 339-340). Many of the exhibitions in the
NBPM are intended to teach and improve on what the museum views as inferior populations. I believe that their efforts in supporting a nation state are intended to reinforce a national identity and to contest the discourse resented by the immigrants portrayed in the museum and those who also visit the site. The museum portrays immigrants as criminals and “alien” to the American way of living by providing multiple examples of exhibitions about illegal immigrants and the dangers in apprehending someone that falls into this category.22
Heterotopia vs. Homotopia
Understanding the meaning of heterotopia and homotopia before analyzing the exhibitions and the material presented in the NBPM is important in order to contextualize the content of the museum and its function in the border region. I give definitions to these terms and later analyze how the exhibitions and artifacts in the museum are strategically placed to serve the purpose of nation building.
22 See Chapter 3 for further discussion. 79
I am, of course, referencing Michel Foucault’s work on “heterotopology” where he uses metaphors to explain heterotopia as the act of using a mirror and occupying that particular space that makes everything “absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over” in a separate location (1986, 24). Foucault states that
“the heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible” (1986, 25). Space plays an important part in understanding heterotopias because they function in correlation with the space that surrounds them. All heterotopias create a space that is “another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled” (Foucault
1986, 27). Homotopia, on the other hand, is based on the topological definition which defines it as a space where two continuous functions mutate from one space to another.
The entities that participate within the same space are morphed or deformed into each other. This action causes for the entities to become as “one”.
The borderlands have become a heterotopic space because they have created an absolute reality of co-existence of cultures in an unreal territory, which has also become torn by the violence and conflict between these same cultures. The NBPM, on the other hand, has presented itself as a homotopic space where “a nation of one” has become its ideological representation. This is only for the purpose of nation building.
The NBPM Stays: Heterotopia vs. Homotopia in the Borderlands
During my observations for this project, I have questioned what kind of work the museum is doing by continuing to stay on the U.S.-Mexico border. In one of my visits, 80
the museum administrator and curator stated that there was an offer to move the NBPM to Washington, since it was deemed a more appropriate location for a museum of such caliber. The administrator also said she refused the offer and made it clear that they would continue to reside in El Paso, Texas. I was intrigued and puzzled by her response.
Why would she want to continue to reside in a city where the museum is visited mainly by those working in government agencies? To move the museum to Washington would entitle more exposure and recognition at a national level; especially, because the NBPM is the only museum of its kind. It was after my observations and referencing the work done on this museum that I realized that the NBPM’s decision to stay in the borderlands region has to do with more than just national recognition. Their persistence to be visible in the border has to do more with the overall impression they want to leave in the minds of those viewing it.
The NBPM has come into conflict with its surroundings because it has presented itself as a homotopic space in a heterotopic region. I have questioned how the museum manages to survive under the scrutiny of entities that have thrived in the border for many
generations. In order to understand
how the museum functions, I
address some of the aspects that
take place inside of the building.
Visiting the different
rooms and displays in the NBPM
allows me to interpret all the
Figure 3.3 81
information given about a particular time period. For a moment, I am transported to a specific moment in time because I am allowed to sit in many of the old vehicles and aircrafts utilized by the Border Patrol (see figures 3.3 & 3.4). Sitting in them and seeing them up close allows me to have a better understanding of how the artifacts and objects in the museum came to be and how they are being presented and used in the field. A correlation between time and space is important to the NBPM because through its exhibitions and displays it presents a broad period of time in history. The artifacts and objects collected and presented in the exhibitions are helping in accumulating time and preserving history by continuously building on the discourses that have been established.
The museum encloses several epochs, times and generations in each of the displays by providing a display and personal experience through the use of vehicles and helicopters as well as the historical documents available to the general public. The material lends itself to the creation of narratives that glorify the Border Patrol agent and criminalize (demonize) the immigrant in U.S. soil. The Figure 3.4 museum presents a space that is real and perfect in its ideology while functioning within a space, like the border, that is “messy, ill constructed and jumbled.” The comparison between the imagery of the Border Patrol as perfect, compared to the reality of violence 82
and conflict in the border is a contradicting discourse where none of the participants are fairly represented.
As I mentioned earlier, the museum has presented many of the exhibitions, artifacts and objects to serve a specific purpose, i.e., nation building and, without a direct intention, the creation of the nation state. Many of the exhibitions are mounted from different field objects used by the Border Patrol in previous eras. One of the wings offers a wall to the supposed immigrant artifacts confiscated by the agents. Another two walls present the plaques of names of agents that have died in the line of duty and plaques with names of patrons of the museum. In the background, the museum recreates scenes on the field by playing different documentaries and film productions about the agency and their work. One of the largest halls contains a series of decommissioned vehicles as well as miniature reproductions of the Border Patrol vehicles of the past.
The fact that the NBPM displays many of the artifacts and narratives that perpetuate certain myths about the U.S. and the border region, proves that they are trying to adapt to a notion of nation, which lends itself to the creation of a homotopic space.
This has become contradictory to the heterotopic space presented on the outside of the museum. The museum is situated in a space that is configured by a sizable
Hispanic/Latino23 community. These two aspects, the idea of nation and the geographical and social-cultural space, have come into conflict when establishing a nation state because the museum offers a clear patriotic notion of a nation state, but the outside (El
Paso, Texas) is representing a different nation state. The NBPM presents a culture and
23 I have chosen to use the word Hispanic or Latino interchangeably to refer to all the people of Mexico or other Latin American countries residing in the United States. 83
nation of “one-people.” The juxtaposition between the homotopic space in the museum and the heterotopic space in El Paso, has created a sense of resentment and anger between the two. The presence of the NBPM creates an interesting tension between the present and past, and between immigrants and Border Patrol agents. The space utilized by the
NBPM is constructed, as all spaces are, by the people who transit them. This is a social- cultural practice where both participants of the heterotopic and homotopic space take part in the process.
The social-cultural practice of creating a space is done through the contact between the members of different groups. The superiority of a social group is manifested in two ways: 1) one group dominates over the other, and 2) one group holds intellectual and moral leadership over the other. A social group is dominant over those antagonistic groups it wants to control or subdue. Gramsci’s “imperial-territorial democracy” refers to the concession of citizenship as a transformation of those whom they had conquered or subdued under armed force into allies and friends (Fontana 141-142). This relation would then lead to the superior group granting citizenship rights to the inferior group.24
The problem with granting citizenship rights to all members of society is that a permanent and stable hegemony can only be reached if “the social group constructs a sociopolitical order capable of instilling its particular cultural and moral beliefs in the consciousness of the people” (Fontana 144). This is the purpose of the NBPM. It is trying to instill particular cultural and moral beliefs in the consciousness of the people of the borderland region in order to acquire a more permanent and stable hegemony.
24 Please refer to Chapter 3 for the discussion about citizenship and legality. 84
Unfortunately, there are several factors that affect the development or propagation of this hegemonic ideology. To start, the U.S.-Mexico border has become an influential factor of resistance since Mexican culture and politics are so near for the people of the border. And second, the historical conflicts and events that have occurred between the two countries have created a racial and cultural divide between them that has affected the relationships and changed the interests between the governments and its people. There exists diverse and multidimentional moral and cultural conceptions of the world. The rapid rate of globalization and modernization have caused for the border to become a battling ground for both entities coming into contact and the different nations they represent. This has led the border region to become a contested space.
The notion of a contested space has not influenced the museum because the creators have always had a clear vision of what the purpose and message of the museum would be: celebrate the U.S. as a nation of American identity. This is a sort of celebrations of an imagined community. According to Benedict Anderson, a community becomes imagined when even though most of its members do not know each other, in their minds “lives the image of their communion” (6). This would also mean that these members are imagining others occupying a shared space and participating in shared cultural practices. The members of this imagined community function in the efforts of their cause. Every object, artifact, art piece and narrative presented there will serve at least one purpose: nation building. Many of these objects and artifacts, once outside of the museum walls may seem obsolete and insignificant for the rest of the border people.
The NBPM, in their effort to serve in nation building, has created a homotopic space 85
where all “citizens” seemed to be represented as one nation. This particular ideology has become problematic because the NBPM is physically located in a geographical region that contradicts and counter attacks the one represented inside its walls.
Because of the different dynamics in the border region, representing a dominant
American ideology of a nation has become challenging. The heterotopic space that surrounds the museum has proven to withstand the rhetoric constructed by the dominant ideology that overshadows the rest of the nation. The museum has been arranged to strengthen national and cultural identity. The museum’s staff has focused on the education and cultivation of its people by exhibiting aspects and trends of the dominant culture; however, it continues to struggle to survive in a location that refuses to fully accept or implement their same ideological views. The NBPM is a “product animated by knowledge and oriented by consciousness asserting its own self-sufficiency. It persists in being through its own strength.” (Lefebvre 21). The persistence to maintain the museum in El Paso, Texas, has been one of its greatest strengths and yet, one of its biggest obstacles in their role in nation building.
The NBPM insistence to stay in the border region demonstrates a desire for strong national and cultural ideals. The museum’s staff expressed their objection to leaving the
El Paso area because they know that the museum’s presence is of outmost importance for their cause. By thriving in a heterotopic land, the museum reinforces its vision of
America, as homotopic land. There is no better location for the museum because in El
Paso, according to dominant ideology the museum makes its presence known. This is an act of rebellion where the museum symbolically refuses to move away from this land 86
because it would signify leaving the place of origin and turning a blind eye to the narrative intended - representing the border entities and power relations. Moving to
Washington would take away the authority that the museum has acquired in El Paso.
This coincides with the same ideals the NBPM stands for when it focuses on presenting a documented history of the border and the Border Patrol from the old west.25 The Border
Patrol has refused to give up the land to invaders and now the museum stands tall in order to reinforce the same narrative. The biggest challenge that the museum faces is that it continues to be contested by different entities within its walls and within its geographical location in the border. These power relations are exemplary of a nation state because in order to have a functioning nation state, there must be entities that are constantly challenging the status quo.26
The NBPM: A “Panoptic” Space and the Exercising of Power
During the entire research process for this project, I have continued my observations with frequent visits to the museum and now the museum seems so much more familiar. I notice other aspects that I had missed before. For example, I noticed the shape and structure of the building and how much these are reminiscent of other state and federal buildings in the area. It was after I reread my notes and reflected on my visits that
I noted how much the building reminded me of a prison. I can’t pinpoint exactly what aspects of the museum triggered these connections but I was aware that the museum and many prisons, were constructed following some of the same architectural patterns
25 Please refer to Chapter 4 for more information about this topic. 26 Nation state refers to the “universalisation of a particular form which is reconfigured locally” (Macdonald and Fyfe 27). 87
established for many other government buildings: i.e., like the courts and health offices, as well as prisons and detention centers.
In his book, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault discusses the above-mentioned architectural layouts in his chapter “Panopticism”. He states that the notion of creating spatial partitioning under strict surveillance can be traced back to the seventeenth century during the plague. According to Foucault the pattern for this disciplinary model is “the utopia of the perfectly governed city” (Foucault 1995,
198). He continues to argue that the partitioning and supervision of space allows participants to be presented only in a fixed location, known as the periphery or outskirt, in which all activity is observed and noted; this activity then aids in linking the periphery to the center, where the power is located (Foucault 1995, 197-198). Foucault goes on to say that the power is presented by following a panopticon27 notion or panoptic mechanisms where at the center stands a tower with wide windows that contains the power and is open to a circular structure divided into cells, which hold the supervised participants (Foucault 1995, 200). This notion is important because it helps define the set up for the NBPM, which follows the panopticon design.
The design will make the visitor feel constantly under surveillance. This explains why my feelings of insecurity and dread have such a lasting effect since visiting the museum can feel as if visiting a prison. The design works because, as visitors, we have internalized the panopticon and play along with the intent of the museum to undermine
27 Jeremy Bentham is the original creator of the panopticon design. Bentham was a lawyer whose work involved education and prison reform in the early 1800’s. His biographical information and all the volumes of The Works of Jeremy Bentham are available at The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fperson=172&Itemid=28 88
our presence and the manner in which we represent ourselves. This is important because we are not to disturb the narrative of the museum with external influences.
The inside of the NBPM is shaped by one large hall that is divided into smaller halls (see figure 3.5). The large hall is first divided into two smaller halls that become subdivided by shelves, counters, walls and exhibition pieces, making up three or four separate sections.
All the halls and subdivided sections are tied together by one center in which the visitor will find the curator’s office. This particular space is the control center for the Figure 3.5 museum. From this area, the curator and staff can view all sections of the museum through two large windows.
In order to pass from one section to another, the visitor has to go through a series of “zig-zag” openings with no doors and all movements and noise is automatically detected by the staff. According to Foucault, the “zig-zag” opening is also a pattern in the panopticon compositional figure. As one continues the tour of the museum, the curator constantly observes the visitors from a central office in the middle of the two halls. And when the administrator works from her office, the other staff members will walk through to make sure everything is running smoothly and offer to answer any of the visitor’s questions and address any concerns about the subject matter (see figure 3.6). 89
The surveillance dynamic in the museum calls for a strong organization of separate and multiple individual observers in order to maintain a high level of surveillance and control.
This allows for
the delegation of power where the curator is the key component. In the
NBPM, the curator has trained her staff to be able to represent her when she is not available. During my visits, I was able to have contact with the curator and two other staff Figure 3.6 members that are well informed about any subject matter related to the artifacts and objects in the museum.
I recall my reaction and feelings when entering the premises. I remember my reaction when I was automatically greeted by the curator and her assistants at the door and how overwhelmed I felt about the welcoming. Foucault’s chapter “Panopticism”, has served in understanding many of these feelings. Foucault describes the functions of the panopticon mechanism and the many different ways it functions as a “laboratory of power.” He states that “thanks to its mechanisms of observation, it gains in efficiency and in the ability to penetrate into men’s behaviour; knowledge follows the advances of 90
power, discovering new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which power is exercised” (1995, 204). After reflecting on my visits to the NBPM, I now understand that the museum is designed to affect the visitor’s behavior by imposing a structural form of viewing the exhibitions and by questioning one's own existence and contribution to the border region. By setting up the entrance like a port of entry, the museum is automatically establishing a power relation with the visitor. By walking into the museum, the visitor becomes observed and this allows a change in one’s behavior by continuously monitoring his/her actions. This change in behavior allows for the NBPM to recognize the individual as visitors and understand his/her position as such; and therefore, allows the curator or staff to exercise a specific power over the visitor. In the case of the NBPM, it not only functions as a space for social control, but it also serves as a powerful authority in cultural and social development.
The exercising of power is very important, if not essential to the overall visiting experience to the NBPM because it allows the visitor to play a part in a very interesting dynamic. The exercising of power is established even before the visitor walks into the building. The building has only one main entrance, and to get to the entrance, one needs to walk up an entry way composed by a set of wide stairs and railings. Once inside, the staff usually greets the visitor at the door by offering different forms of salutations. This is done to inform the visitor that the staff is aware of his or her presence.
The staff is usually dressed in green shirts and pants as if resembling the Border
Patrol uniforms. All of the staff shirts are embroidered with a NBPM insignia in gold stitching. Needless to say, the reception and greeting area are reminiscent of the 91
experience of crossing any of the Border Patrol checkpoints throughout the U.S and border regions. I continuously felt that I should carry and be ready to show my documents proving I had legal rights to be in this country since the staff randomly walks through the rooms in order to address any concerns.28 This behavior lends itself to make the visitor feel uncomfortable and observed. The dynamic established by the museum staff and the visitors can easily be interpreted as what Foucault refers to as penetrating into "men’s" [sic] behavior because the actions of the staff have manipulated the visitor’s mood and attitude towards the exhibitions causing a power struggle between the two participants. The dynamic established between the staff and the visitors shows that the tactics of interaction can get into the subconscious mind of the visitor and can alter their behavior. For example, the staff would constantly be observing me and asking if I needed help. This made it very difficult for me to take pictures or to comment about the displays with my companionship because I was afraid to get caught doing something wrong.
The staff’s random walks through the museum are only one example of how the
NBPM will establish and exercise its power. The staff members never request any sort of documentation; however, because of the museum’s structural design, the visitor will automatically feel the need to proof his/her legal status. The panopticon design “arranges things in such a way that the exercise of power is not added on from the outside, like a rigid, heavy constraint, to the functions it invests, but is so subtly present in them as to increase their efficiency by itself increasing its own points of contact” (Foucault 1995,
28 I address these feelings as part of Chapter 5 when I include a discussion on racism, illegality and citizenship. 92
206). Foucault’s discussion of the panopticon presents an opportunity to understand why, as a visitor, anyone can feel under surveillance and have such a strong reaction to the NBPM. Intentional or not, from the moment any visitor
walks up to the entrance, he passes Figure 3.7 through a set of stairs and railing as resembling a port of entry (see figure 3.7). This 'port of entry', as a structural design is reinforced when one is confronted by the behavior of the NBPM staff. The power of the
NBPM over its visitors is not necessarily coming from any aspects of the outside but from the way the objects are presented, what behaviors are established and how displays are positioned from the entrance all the way to the inside.
The NBPM: The Commodification of Symbols and the Hegemonic State in Nation
Building
“National Border Patrol Museum. Where Heroes and Legends Come Alive.”
-NBPM Website
Finding a more suitable location for cultural representations of the Border Patrol and its agents would be difficult given that the materials found in the NBPM have become symbolic of the many discourses of the agency. The museum has offered a space where cultural aspects are conscientiously selected, re-appropriated and displayed. 29
29 Please refer to the Introduction where I talk about the production of space in the museum. 93
This dissertation has only briefly begun to discuss the many representations exhibited and evolving in the museum. “Where heroes and legends come alive” has become a reoccurring theme in the museum and part of the discourse propagated by the Border
Patrol agents in the border region. In an effort to study and understand the meaning and connotation of this phrase, as well as other aspects of the museum, I open this section with a discussion on how the NBPM has taken cultural and national symbols, and turned them into commodities that have helped the reinforcement of a national hegemony. The reinforcement of this particular hegemonic state has in return allowed the museum to become a symbol of national patriotism and fidelity to a United States that not all visitors and museum goers can relate to or even acknowledge during a visit.
What is a commodity and how is it negotiable in the NBPM?
Before I move on to the discussion on the commodification of cultural and national symbols in the NBPM, I want to refer to Karl Marx’s critique of the political economy and further address my working definition of the term “commodity”. In “Basic
Writings on Politics and Philosophy,” a collection of works by Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels, Marx examines the capitalist mode and conditions of production and exchange.
Marx’s work demonstrates that capitalism’s ability to transform everything into a commodity has created products, including objects and ideas, as goods that can be purchased, sold or traded for equal value. This arrangement is always pre-established between the two participants of the exchange. According to Marx, “money and commodities are no more capital than are the means of production and of subsistence... the two very different kinds of commodity possessors must come face to face and into 94
contact: on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to increase the sum of values they possess, by buying other people’s labor power; on the other hand, free laborers, the sellers of their own labor power, and therefore the sellers of labor” (Marx 161). Marx’s discussion of the exchange of commodities has become helpful in understanding the commodity exchange taking place within the museum.
In the NBPM, the relationship between commodity possessors can present itself in three ways: 1) the visitor serving as the commodity possessor who seeks to increase the value he/she possesses and the museum serving as the seller of it’s own labor; 2) the
NBPM serving as the commodity possessor who seeks to increase the value it possesses and the manufacturers of the museum’s products and the Border Patrol memorabilia collectors serving as the sellers of their own labor; 3) the museum donator serving as the commodity possessor who seeks to increase the value it possesses and the NBPM serving as the seller of it’s own labor. I will address each of these relationships individually and even though, the first and third relationship might seem similar, they differ in the commodity exchange and values they are assigning to each of their commodities.
In the first case, the visitor will serve as the commodity possessor who seeks to increase the value he/she possesses and the museum will serve as the seller of its own labor because the visitor will travel to the museum and enjoy many of the exhibitions displayed. The visitor will then finish his/her tour of the museum by perhaps purchasing many of the objects for sale in the gift shop. The objects include plaques, medals, plates, mugs, steins, pens, clocks, money clips, key chains, magnets, ashtrays, paperweights, 95
playing cards, bags, letter openers, badges, shirts, caps, hats, toy trucks, teddy bears and baby clothing (see figure 3.8).
Figure 3.8
The dynamic between the two commodity possessors, visitor and museum, allows for the visitor to use a commodity, in this case monetary exchange, in order to attain a product representative of the visit to the museum. The museum in return has provided, for the same monetary exchange, an experience that will always unite the visitor with that specific product, a specific time and the museum itself. Most of the products sold in the NBPM are designed with the Border Patrol insignia included. This means that an ordinary product, i.e. a coffee mug, turns into a cultural and national symbol and once purchased, it becomes part of the commodification of such symbols.
This exchange not only becomes a commodification of cultural and national symbols but it provides a tool for the propagation of a hegemonic state.
The second relationship between commodity possessors is the one where the
NBPM serves as the commodity possessor who seeks to increase the value it possesses and the manufacturers of the museum’s products serve as the sellers of their own labor. 96
The museum serves as the commodity possessor who seeks to increase the value it possesses when it purchases, or offers an exchange of products, historical artifacts and memorabilia of the Border Patrol. Some of the artifacts or objects obtained include several art pieces, tools and weaponry used by the agents throughout the years in the
Border Patrol. In most cases the memorabilia is exchanged for a plaque with the name of the donator. To see one’s name in a plaque or on a piece of board in an exhibition provides a sense of honor and pride for the person making the donation. This second type of relationship also resembles the one between the museum and the manufacturing company that creates the products sold in the NBPM. This relationship differs to the one previously discussed because the exchange between the NBPM and the manufacturing company is one of monetary compensation. The museum buys a product that will later become a cultural and national symbol for many visitors.
The third relationship between commodity possessors involves the museum donators, as they serve as the commodity possessor who seeks to increase the value they possess, and the NBPM, which serves as the seller of its own labor. In this relationship, the commodity exchange involves a monetary form for a symbolic plaque (see figure 3.9). This plaque symbolizes more than any of the other products that can be purchased in the Figure 3.9 museum because it allows the donator to 97
feel a sense honor, pride and citizenship to the NBPM. This plaque is displayed on the
“Wall of Support,” where other visitors can see and admire each of the names. This wall puts the specific donators in a special position above all the rest who visit the museum.
The first and third relationship between commodity possessors might seem similar in that the exchange occurs between the NBPM and the visitors to the museum; however, the commodity exchange and value is different. In the first exchange there is monetary exchange for products with the Border Patrol insignia and in the second exchange there is a monetary exchange for the pride and opportunity to belong to the
NBPM as a member and fellow sponsor. Even though they differ in commodity exchange, these two relationships provide a sense of ownership or belonging to a specific group.
Commodity: A Tool for the Hegemonic State
One important aspect of turning culture or nation into a commodity is the way it can “co-opt, neutralize and render powerless any challenges to the economic and political status quo” (Wright 15). By neutralizing or rendering powerless any challenges to the political status quo, the NBPM assures the enforcement of a national hegemonic ideology. But how does the NBPM accomplish this act? The museum exhibits objects that later become part of cultural commodification. The objects bought and sold help in understanding the importance in creating objects and not subjects. This also leads to the propagation of a hegemonic state and sense of membership of such state.
An ordinary product turns into a cultural and national symbol and once purchased, it becomes part of the commodification of such symbols. This exchange not only 98
becomes a commodification of cultural and national symbols but it provides a tool for the propagation of a hegemonic state. There are different commodity exchanges taking place in the NBPM space and all the possessors are benefitting, one way or another, by obtaining a desired product. However, this desired product is not only fulfilling the satisfaction of ownership, it has also become an exchange of a different kind: an exchange of beliefs and convictions, an exchange of ideologies in regards to a hegemonic state. In order to understand the relationships between the participants in these exchanges, I want to discuss the different commodities that serve as tools for the propagation of the belief that all members of a particular society belong to a hegemonic state. I also want to address the role of the NBPM and what it is trying to accomplish by playing into these commodity relationships. First, I want to make clear what I understand a hegemonic state to be.
Benedetto Fontana’s book, Hegemony and Power, establishes a better understanding of Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci's notion of hegemony. In his book,
Fontana quotes Gramsci when stating that hegemony is the “intellectual and moral leadership... it articulates and proliferates throughout society cultural and ideological belief systems whose teachings are accepted as universally valid” (140). These belief systems of values are based on ideological, philosophical, cultural, and intellectual notions. The intellectuals, as referred by Gramsci, were responsible for the education and structure of a particular society. The intellectuals were the linking factor between the elite and lower classes, or as he refers to as the “subordinate class” (Fontana 140-141).
The role of the intellectual and the role of the museum relate to each other in the way that 99
the museum is used by the intellectuals as a tool to present an understanding of the world with similar values and interests. Museums are then used to educate and propagate a particular way of life; therefore, also propagating a hegemonic state.
As discussed earlier, the cultural and national commodification of certain products becomes apparent in the main hall where the gift shop is located. Many of these objects, like coffee mugs and t-shirts are so visible and easily to detect in the gift shop stand. However, there are other products where one has to look very closely in order to really visualize the object as a commodification of cultural and national symbols and as tools for the propagation of a hegemonic state.
One example of the commodification of cultural and national symbols and the propagation of a hegemonic state is the art pieces hanging on the walls.30 The pressure of Figure 3.10 sponsorship has increased the merchandizing of culture to a degree that the public art on display has become a series of branding and recruiting opportunities for the Border Patrol. Some of the objects for sale are several large art pieces donated by retired Border Patrol agents and others are art pieces on display by the general public (see figure 3.10). These pieces have become such
30 The NBPM also sells plaques, medals, plates, mugs, steins, pens, clocks, money clips, key chains, magnets, ashtrays, paperweights, playing cards, bags, letter openers, badges, shirts, caps, hats, toy trucks, teddy bears and baby clothing; these commodities carry a hegemonic insignia that helps to perpetuate beyond the walls of the museum. 100
an important aspect of the NBPM because they contain images that are relevant to the discourses presented by the Border Patrol agency. Some of these images include border themes, such as desert panoramic views, western attire, Border Patrol agents looking on to the horizon, the United States flag hanging next to the Border Patrol uniform, etc.
The NBPM offers the visitor the opportunity to contribute to the museum by purchasing one of the pieces displayed in its walls. Many of the expensive pieces are painted, sculpted and drawn by retired Border Patrol agents who donated the work as contribution. Andrew Ross, in his discussion about museums and public credibility says that museums were “building on public land, accepting public monies, and advertising their role in public education” in order to gain the respect of their communities (341). He goes on to say that the museum benefactors served in the boards of trustees, therefore this allowed them to “display their own art, in an arrangement that made buildings... appear more like mausoleums to enshrine their benefactors’ fame than the people’s museums”
(Ross 341). This is clearly what the NBPM is trying to do by selling the works of retired agents because doing so will enshrine the benefactors inside of what is already considered a monument or memorial of the Border Patrol.
Other important objects for sale in the museum are the different T-shirts designed with the Border Patrol insignia. These include themes like “Mean Green,” and
“Operation Jump Start.” 31 These objects, narratives and art pieces are placed within the walls of nationalism; therefore, they are automatically restricted from the kinds of
31 Please refer to the Introduction for the “Mean Green” reference. “Operation Jump Start” was the name for the government operation that permitted the deployment of the National Guard in the U.S.-Mexico border region. 101
memories they can create because they can only serve a nationalistic narrative. The symbols imprinted in the t-shirts leave no room for interpretation except the one that represents the Border Patrol.
The NBPM is a site of conflicting voices and opposing agendas, but it only presents the one sided vision of the U.S. Border Patrol, causing an evident struggle in the narratives it presents. These narratives, in the purpose of nation building have also allowed the museum to become a repository of patriotic sentiment. They have permitted its visitors to experience a general consensus of citizenship by purchasing a copper plaque with their name on it for everyone to see. This provides a sense of citizenship that only few get to enjoy. Right behind the vehicle exhibition you can find the “Wall of
Support” with all the names of the donations made by the patrons of the museum. Many of the patrons include the FORBPO members and current Border Patrol agents that offer their Charitable Federal Contributions through pay deductions done regularly.
Commodities as Tools of Nation Building
The commodification of products goes beyond the expected plaque, coffee mug, and t-shirt. The NBPM has become a fully-functioning production machine when its main purpose is to embody culture and history as a symbol of the unity of a nation, as was the case with the hegemonic state. From its origins, the museum was established to support a national identity and later play a major part in defining the type of identity chosen to represent this nation. Museums in general, are used as nation builders because they provide a series of artifacts and objects that are strategically chosen to represent a specific nation. Nationalism, in this example, is referred to as the “awakening of nations 102
to self-consciousness”; nationalism “invents nations where they do not exists” (Anderson
6). The symbols in the NBPM then become associated with that nation and create a sense of nationalism for those who participate in the museum.
In all museums, “the collected objects... document a human community extending in time and space: the nation. They also document by their (territorial) origins the state’s spheres of political influence. The building contains representatively everything in the state territory – and in this way becomes itself a symbol of power relationships” (Macdonald and Fyfe 35). As with other museums, the NBPM also plays a part in defining the nature of the nation because it provides a location in which national culture and history are presented. It also permits a space in which one can find oneself as individuals and as part of a national identity. The notion of nationalism allows for the symbolic artifacts and objects to become part of the historical patrimony that will eventually represent this nation throughout many generations.
The NBPM focuses on nation building when it provides access to historical patrimony since many of the displays are based on the archival work done by the curator and her staff. The problem with the representation of history is that there is a tension between the shift in ownership and narrative complexity. Presenting only certain aspects of history allows for the manipulation of many of the specifics in the historical events in this country. One example where the historical facts seem to be based on biases is the “In the Line of Duty” room (see figure 3.11). The room contains diverse commemorative plates and pictures of the agents that have lost their lives while performing their job. The museum is portraying the Border Patrol agents as victims of border relations. The 103
Figure 3.11 undocumented immigrant is represented as part of historical patrimony but in a different manner from the one represented outside of the NBPM. He becomes criminalized and serves as a tool for criticizing the environment outside the museum.
The importance of the objects, the behaviors of staff members and composition of the exhibits and displays in the museum have become so important because these influence or manipulate the messages and meanings received by the visitor. The artifacts, objects and narratives have also shaped what is representing an imagined community.
Each artifact is strategically set up to present a narrative that will aid in making the visitors feel as they are united by one belief and one nation. Through the act of creating an illusion of a nation and offering a sort of historical patrimony, the museum is also creating an imagined community where not all border identities are present and where, most likely, the ones involved come into conflict with each other.
These conflicts have led to the creation or reinforcement of cultural identities of those involved in these power struggles. Every museum has a different form of classifying their displays. The displays or exhibitions reveal many of the motivations behind their structure and presentation. The museum’s curator and staff will decide what 104
particular order each exhibit will be in and what information they will be presented. This decision will greatly influence the perception of the visitor and audience. Even though, at first glance museums might seem similar in presentation, each one decides what distinctive features will become authoritative and legitimizing in their message. The curators and the board of trustees will decide what their symbolic role and message to the community will be and what master narrative they will present. These master narratives focus on specific social roles and representations. In the case of the NBPM, the specific order of the artifacts and the method of presentations are generally predetermined by the dominant class, and for the purpose of analyzing the material presented in the museum, I will refer to the white Anglo-Saxon American as the member of the dominant class.32
The identities found in the NBPM form and reflect a specific social and cultural role that also holds a crucial part of historical patrimony. In this case, the reappropriation of agency through artifacts and narratives has integrated many other entities within its space, but only as tools to aid them in their purpose of presenting their own history and culture. This would be the case of the Hispanics, Chinese and German immigrants whose image continues to be present in the exhibition halls. The museum’s content is a result of the racial interests of the dominant class and it provides an account of the complexity in power relations, since the content alludes to the white American and his constant battle for territory and rights in U.S. soil.
Many of the exhibitions in the NBPM are intended to teach and improve on what the museum’s staff considers the inferior populations. I believe that their efforts are
32 Please refer to my discussion of the historical significance of the American Anglo-Saxon in Chapter 4. 105
intended to reinforce a national identity and to contest the discourse presented by the immigrants that naively visit the site. One example of their teachings is the exhibitions about the illegal immigrants and the dangers in apprehending someone that falls into this category. The museum portrays immigrants as criminals and “alien” to the American way of life.33
The Monumentalization of Commodities
The NBPM presents “In the Line of Duty” room and the rest of the museum as a form of memorial or monument to the Border Patrol agents they have lost. It also has regularly held acts of public commemoration. I often wonder why they hold so many ceremonies and why they have such a public out-poring for these events. For example, such is the case of the dedication ceremony for the steel sculpture that sits outside the building. These ceremonies are considered moments when a shifting discourse of history, personal memory, and cultural memory come together with each other, merge, and disengage in a narrative tangle (Sturken 357). The visitor sees the history, personal memory and cultural memory of the Border Patrol come together during the ceremonies and commemorations where no representation of the undocumented “illegal” immigrants is ever present, and yet the immigrants are the sole purpose for their existence. The
United States, has always presented nationalism’s emphasis on mortality, expressed through the construction of memorials, shrines and graves dedicated to the unrecognized soldier or patriot fighter for this country. Many nations, just like many religions are concerned with transforming fatality into continuity. It is important to keep history intact
33 See Chapter 5 for further discussion. 106
by building huge monuments that constantly recall on specific events. There are many examples of large scale monuments throughout the United States; however, there are also more local examples of this type of monumentalization. The NBPM is only one example of many others.
Marita Sturken, in her research about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, discusses how narratives of the war have been made out of and within the cultural memory of the war. In the case of the NBPM, it offers personal and collective memories of the “border war”. The monument and memorial are used interchangeably to evoke heroism and patriotism (see figure 3.12). For example, the museum is continuously showing documentaries of the Border Patrol of the past and present. The multiple uses of the phrases like “those who gave their live in the line of duty”, “in remembrance of”, “in memory of”, “in honor of those Figure 3.12 who gave their lives”, etc., along with the shrines, monuments and memorabilia, have added to the creation of a patriotic narrative that allows fatality to interconnect with our present and aids in shaping our future in the border region.
In Theorizing Museums, Macdonald states that “Museums are sites in which history, directly or unobtrusively, may be represented. They are a storehouse of their nation’s qualities. Their displays create and reinforce a version of the past that 107
constitutes a part of collective memory” (70). Arthur Danto in his research about the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial states, “We erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials so that we shall never forget” (152). This is apparent when you first arrive at the museum and a monument of an agent riding a 20-foot horse welcomes you. Although the NBPM has erected a monument to commemorate the accomplishments by the Border Patrol agency, it has also offered a memorial to all of those agents who have lost their lives. These memorials become a tribute by foregrounding the loss of lives and grief of families. This is also represented by the plaques of names of the lost agents and of the sponsors who have donated money to the cause.
This museum seems to be representative of a particular period when the Border
Patrol was established. “Nationalism emphasis on mortality, expressed for instance in memorials and graves dedicated to the unknown soldier, is a manifestation of how nations are concerned with the transformation of fatality into continuity, contingency into meaning” (Macdonald and Fyfe 35). The NBPM shares memories and makes connections of specific events, places or people involved and establishes these memories in localized and specific settings. They become forms of institutional commemorations in the different societies which challenge alternative memories of others that are not represented in the site.
Museums contribute in creating identities but more importantly in establishing and maintaining a political hegemony. One of the ways in which they do this is by presenting specific roles of rites and commemorations. Specific agents and practices are 108
employed in order to identify or relate this space as part of a nation. The visitor will become aware of this by noticing how certain aspects from the past become centralized in the exhibitions. The artifacts, no longer useful today, become symbolic and the central components of an exhibition; their value is understood collectively in the establishing of a political hegemony. Museums are also sites in which history is represented. Through the representation of history we see that a country can protect its nation’s most valuable qualities and treasures. Certain displays create and reinforce a version of the past that constitutes a part of collective memory, one that is not necessarily shared by all.
The memorials and monuments in the museum are presented not only by the “In the Line of Duty” room, but by the dioramas of different artifacts in the different rooms, furniture, objects, photographs and cultural artifacts on display. These objects provoke memories in forms that are predictable by some and disruptive to others. Alan Radley, in his article “Artifacts, memory and a sense of the past” stated the following:
[...] remembering is something which occurs in a world of things, as well
as words, and that artifacts play a central role in the memories of cultures
and individuals... in the very variability of objects, in the ordinariness of
their consumption and in the sensory richness of relationships people
enjoy through them, they are fitted to be later re-framed as material
images for reflection and recall. (57-58)
The process of social remembering in this particular site has become immediate and challenging because of the images it portrays and the narratives it possesses. 109
The NBPM offers infinite opportunities for research and interpretation. In this chapter, I present an observational account of my visits and experience in the museum. I mainly focus on discussing the museum as a heterotopic space functioning within the nation state. I am concerned with establishing a connection between the museum as a commodity and a tool in the propagation of the hegemonic state. The museum as a panoptic space allows for me to question my emotional state and alterations during the visits to the museum. I make an overall interpretation of the space and how it's used to establish a rhetoric that reinforces a power relation and narrative comparable to that of the dominant culture.
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CHAPTER 4
WILD, WILD WEST
THE CONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF RACIAL IDENTITIES
(PART I)
The United States has become a symbol of prosperity and freedom for many of the underprivileged countries all over the world. With the increase in migration waves in this country we have also seen an overuse of the term “American” in politics, media, culture, and in our daily lives. The journey and struggle for many immigrants coming to this country is always justified by the imagery of them accomplishing their American dream and aspiring to become an American citizens who resides and flourishes in this country. In politics, for example, the term “American” has played an important role in the media when addressing the validity of President Obama’s birthright as an American citizen. In popular culture, country music singers, the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith, battled each other in several media outlets to prove who has been more American.
Being an American has acquired an importance in our generation that the battle for possession of an American identity has become part of our daily lives. This chapter is inspired by an incident that occurred to my father when he was personally confronted because of his identity. In this particular occasion, a rancher was frustrated with him for not speaking fluent English and decided to confront him directly. The rancher told my father: “Learn English… This is America. Be a man or go back to Mexico.”34 My father froze and the rancher walked away when he could no longer provoke him. I am surprised
34 The quotes are referring to the conversation as recalled by my father. The nature of the conversation is subjective to my father’s personal views of the U.S. and his own idea of citizenship. 111
that the rancher would have the courage tell my father these words directly to his face. In his years of agricultural work, my father has encountered racist views and opinions of which many have been unexplored and hence, unexpressed in public life. My father’s reaction at the time would seem normal since one usually reverts to shock when confronted by such blatant acts of racism.
Even though this type of act was an isolated incident for my father, I am sure that this is a more common occurrence for many others in this country. The act of being confronted for ones racial and ethnic background becomes exacerbated when we ourselves start to confront and question our own racial and ethnic identity. My father began to question why he was not and could never be a real American. This, in turn, made me question why I am an American. The reaction by this particular rancher also made me question several aspects about this event. I wondered how in that moment the rancher could feel more American for speaking fluent English. Furthermore, how is speaking English going to turn my father into an American? What is it about our
American culture that makes us feel superior to the non-English speaking population? I questioned how going back to Mexico would make my father more of a man. How is masculinity linked to the American identity? Am I less American for being a woman?
What does it mean to be American? I have no direct answers to address the incident with my father. However, I have concluded that the sense of superiority and ownership is what allowed the rancher to speak that way to my Mexican, very indigenous looking father. These are some of the aspects that I address in this chapter. I am not able to 112
change the outcome of their interaction; however, I am able to develop a critical analysis of the events that transpired.
Now, I am able to understand the exchange being played out between the rancher and my father, I can see how identities are constructed and reconstructed to fulfill our needs at the time of our exchange. I have participated in similar exchanges with my identity when I refer to myself as Mestiza, Chicana, Hispana, Hispanic, Mexican,
American and Mexican-American. These exchanges are done individually and cooperatively by everyone on a daily basis. The analysis of the exchange between my father and the rancher and the exchange that I am part of, have allowed me to begin to understand how these representations are exhibited and reformulated depending on their use. I have taken the information on how identities are constructed to address how the
National Border Patrol Museum has constructed and reconstructed identities that are being exchanged and utilized to create and transform other identities35. These identities are reinforced both inside and outside the museum space. In order to accomplish this, the museum revisits history and reclaims it to present a discourse that is reminiscent to one that resonates in the border region. Moreover, I discuss the identities in the NBPM and address how the United States, as a nation, has served as a model for the creation of the
Border Patrol and for the NBPM.
The Foundation of a Nation
The United States was founded under the belief of a united nation of Americans that would serve and protect its race, culture and beliefs. The establishment of the United
35 Refer to Chapter 5 where I address the construction and reconstruction of the immigrant identity. 113
States as a country has served as base for the Border Patrol since it has been established to follow the same school of thought as the one used to establish this country. The foundation of the United States as a country is important because it establishes the identity that is now used to identify and separate us as American citizens. As founders of this country, the forefathers adopted the Anglo-Saxon and/or American Anglo Protestant identity in order to proclaim this country as their own. The ideology of an American nation as white, Anglo-Saxon has spread to other areas of the government, making this representation dominant over the minorities residing in this country.
From the origins of the United States, Americans have strived to define themselves in relation to their racial, ethnic, ideological and cultural similarities.
Political scientists Samuel P. Huntington has stated that these similarities have historically been the substance of American identity (12). I would go further and say that these are not only the substance of American identity but they have been crucial in defining and establishing our country’s identity. This country is in constant battle to define itself in terms of its race and culture. It is very common and expected to question where one comes from. In part, this is done because this country is made up of immigrants from different regions in the world. Questions like: What are you? Where are you from? Where are you ancestors from?, become central to our everyday interaction. We excuse ourselves by stating that this country was established by immigrants and the uniqueness of someone’s racial and ethnic characteristics are what motivate our questioning. We are also so accustomed to the interrogation that we are no longer apologetic about this process. 114
As citizens we often ask similar questions about our country. Who are we? What is our race and culture? What identifies us as a country? Are we a nation? Who represents us? Who represents the other? Are we unique? Do we represent a
Westernized version of our ancestors? What ties this country together? Events like the attack on September 11, 2001 and the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan have aggravated the need to address these questions about race. As Americans, we continuously search to find out who we are as a nation because we are now encountering others that might be threatening our interests and priorities. The racial and cultural conflict arises when so many identities cohabitating in one country contradict each other and can’t decided what to define our nation and/or ourselves.
The racial struggle can’t be more evident than in the border region since specific groups on both sides of the border fight to protect their racial and cultural ideals.
Understanding the dynamic between the different ethnic groups in the border will expose many of the longstanding conflicts in the region. Ironically, the terms “race” and
“culture” have been misused or interchanged so often that their definitions have become intertwined.
Sociologists Rubén G. Rumbaut, suggests that race is only “a pigment of the imagination,” since our race is first socially constructed and then later defined by those same constructions (quoted in Rose, P. 12). Factors such as, socioeconomic status, cultural preferences, and behavioral parameters are used to define and represent race.
Racism is “a connection between looks and outlooks, between one’s genetic makeup and the way one thinks and acts. Furthermore, implicit in the idea of racism is the assumption 115
of group-based superiority and inferiority” (Rose, P., 12). The superiority and inferiority complexes have become part of the power relations developed in the border region. Such is the case for the descendents of Mexican immigrants and the descendents of Anglo-
Saxon that consider themselves to be nativists and are currently having to inhabit the border with others. Nativists are those people practicing "a new racial nativism" which according to historian George J. Sánchez is composed of three elements:
• an extreme antipathy towards non-English languages and a fear that
linguistic difference will undermine the American nation;
• a belief that misguided and sometimes secretive government policies
favour people of colour over whites through multiculturalism and
affirmative action;
• the notion that immigrants are non-working loafers who drain public
resources through the utilization of welfare, education and health-care
services. (Sánchez, G. J., 1020)
Culture also plays a significant part of the dynamic between the two major ethnic groups, whites and Mexicans, in the border since it helps understand and shape each of them in regards to race. Anthropologist and Sociologist Peter Rose defines culture as “the way people live; the rules they set for themselves; the general ideas around which they organize their lives; the things they feel are good or bad, right or wrong, pleasurable or painful” (10-11). The cultural parameters are usually learned and taken from others, those referred to as brokers, carriers and dealers of culture. All of us, in our daily lives serve as cultural brokers, carriers and dealers when we have exchanges within our 116
society. For example, our language socialization is filled with traits that express our cultural preference. The negotiation of culture is then triggered by our conversations and the words we use in our exchange. The other participant decides what he feels he is ready to exchange and deal of his own cultural identity. He responds by presenting what he is willing to share and the other decides if he/she accepts this exchange. One example of this exchange is the incident between the rancher and my father where they both dealt with their own identity and culture as two individual brokers.
Huntington states that culture "refers to a people's language, religious beliefs, social and political values, assumptions as to what is right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate..." (30). Every society establishes its own definition of culture based on what it considers to be the purpose and meaning of such society. This definition is based on certain traits that are recognized and followed by those members in that particular society. Furthermore, the definition of culture changes when new meanings are attained and examined when they come into contact with other societies. Raymond Henry
Williams would call these two traits, the way of life, which is the common meanings, and the arts and learning which are the processes of discovery and creativity. Stuart Hall presents culture as the things that are easily distinguished in the "way of life" of people, communities, nations and social groups. Culture holds what are considered to be shared values, practices, productions, and exchanges of meanings of this particular society. It is the responsibility of each member of society to interpret and make sense of what is happening around the world (2). 117
Race and culture have played a central role in the way in which people have been perceived in this country. Due to the contact between ethnicities and races, the power relations have presented a hierarchy in ranking majority and minority peoples. Thus far, there is nothing in the genetic making that would predispose nonwhites to belong to such inferior status. There are instances in history that have aided in the shaping of this racial stratification. Before I address the displacement of the people of color, I want to address the position that white Americans hold in the United States.
The Anglo-Saxon Identity: What it means to be an “American”
In order to understand or analyze the exchanges mentioned earlier, I reflect on the idea of citizenship and the sense of belonging while living in the United States. I am especially intrigued why some of us feel so superior or inferior to others based on our racial identity. From its origins and regardless of what people think of each other, the
United States has been a multiracial nation; and as a nation it has struggled to completely adopt an identity that would fully integrate all of its members. In politics and culture, many, continuously fight to identify themselves with two of the predominant cultural ideologies: either a multiethnic melting pot or the patriotic nativisim. Included in the nativist category are those “American” members of society who consider themselves descendents of the founders of America who arrived to the New World on the
Mayflower; the white, Anglo-Protestants of English background.
The United States was established under the belief of American expansionism and
Manifest Destiny. Prior to becoming the United States of America, its European ancestors established this country with the belief of expanding its territory through a God 118
given right. The idea of Manifest Destiny had always been received with hesitation and conflict by the Native American population and by immigrants (excluding the initial settlers) who established themselves in the New World.
Part of the expansionism efforts included the spreading of the English Anglo-
Saxon religious beliefs. Discussion on American progress and racial destiny did not become part of public political rhetoric until the mid 1800’s. The 1850’s brought a new vision where the American Anglo-Saxons believed to be a “separate, innately superior people” (Horsman 2). Furthermore, the belief of that the Anglo-Saxons were a superior race was one that thrived in the United States but was inherited through their European ancestors. According to historian Reginald Horsman, the term “Anglo-Saxon” became very popular in the 1840’s, when it was used to refer to the white people who were descendants of those who had settled the United States and were not from African, Native
American, Mexican, Spanish or Asian descent (4). Horsman also states that this “was a superior race, and inferior races were doomed to subordinate status or extinction” (1-2).
This popular belief began to dominate the power relations and defined the hierarchy between the racial groups.
A sense of superiority in a recently freed land began to overtake many who passed judgment on those they felt as inferior. For the first time, the citizens of this country felt the need to differentiate from one another by establishing new terms to address their identities and relation to each other. Horsman states that “many in the United States were anxious to justify the enslavement of the blacks and the expulsion and possible 119
exterminations of the Indians” (3). It is no secret that this belief of being a superior race also called for the mistreatment and abuse of the inferior races.
The doctrines of Caucasian, Aryan, or Anglo-Saxon destiny continued to flourish in the United States. In reference to the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, Professor
Justin Akers Chacón and Historian Mike Davis state the following: “The idea of a distinct
‘Anglo-Saxon’ race, superior in composition to the other inhabitants of North America, permeated [the] national discourse leading up to the conflict. According to this view,
Mexican people were inherently inferior to Anglos, on the grounds that they were
'mongrelized' by the fusion of Indian and African blood with that of the European
Spaniard” (101). In his autobiography Recollections, Waddy Thompson, politician from
South Carolina stated:
That the Indian Race of Mexico must recede before us... is quite as certain
as that is the destiny of our own Indians... [and that Blacks in Mexico are]
the same lazy, filthy an vicious creatures that they in-evitably become
where they are not held in bondage. [Overall, Mexicans are] lazy,
ignorant, and of course, vicious and dishonest. (quoted in Akers Chacón
and Davis 101)
This is only one example of many instances where a person's race came to be questioned in regards to his role and performance in society. In 1946, Thompson expresses his disdain for the Native population, and in this particular case, for those of
Mexican and African descent. The relationship between the U.S. and Mexico has been established unequally from the beginning. In terms of Manifest Destiny, the U.S. has 120
always seen Mexico as the conquered; therefore, revoking any sovereignty and territorial integrity. Lytle Hernandez says that Manifest Destiny, lead Americans to envision the borderline between “the free white race” and the “half-savage, half-civilized race of
Mexico”(3). The rhetoric containing strong racial overtones is still present today in the
United States. The rhetoric that was once used to address the power relations between white Americans and uncivilized Mexicans is extended to refer to all immigrants with no regard to racial, national or cultural heritage.
Because of their geographical contact, the United States and Mexico have strong racial and national divisions. They are divided by agents in green and blue, camouflage and fatigues that separate by patrolling, as well as by fences, wires and rivers, notwithstanding, their beliefs on race, culture and identity. The ideas of racism, expansionism and conquest have been ones to permeate throughout the countries’ history.
In the case of the U.S., racism has defined relations between the incoming Anglo settlers and the Mexican population causing the racial and cultural struggles to continue today.
Wars have not been the only ones to aggravate the relations between races in the U.S.; in many cases, it has been government policies that have changed our history forever.
Eugenics: Categorization and survival of the fittest
The Anglo Saxon racial ideology and attitudes of superiority led to more grave and drastic racial distinctions and perceptions of racial superiority. Americans have always believed that there is a qualitative difference between the races. These have been understood as more innate than environmental. According to Huntington, humans "were 121
divided into four major races, which in descending order of quality were Caucasian,
Mongolian, Indian, and African (55). This hierarchy is still perceived today.
In the early 1900's, scientific studies of the different races began to take place in order to further understand the reasons behind this superiority or inferiority complex. As a result, the United States' government began a series of racially biased movements that further distanced the gap between the races. In an effort to racially classify all people in the country, many white Americans became involved in activist movements like the one that became known as eugenics, which presented social levels as a result of natural selection.
Eugenics was a movement established in 1883 by British biologist Francis Galton, who described it as “the process of strengthening the human race through selective breeding” (Sofair and Kaldjian 312). Anthropologists and scientists had become intrigued with Charles Darwin’s biological theory and felt the need to apply it to the human species. Decades prior to Galton’s experiments, the “French count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau had described race as the driving force of human history, arguing that there were several pure racial archetypes and attributing superior intelligence to the ‘Aryan’ archetype” (312). The eugenics movement proposed that “abilities, behaviors, and traits are all predetermined by race” (Akers Chacón and Davis 188). According to Akers
Chacón and Davis, eugenics gathered counterfeit data that was scientifically categorized where northern Europeans were placed “at the pinnacle and various persons of color on the lowest” levels (188). Through the research, eugenicists “attributed crime, deviance, poverty, and other malevolent social phenomena to race” (188). Eugenics has been the 122
separation of social levels classes was a result of those living in poverty because of their
“lack of ambition or intelligence” (188). Therefore, there exists a link between poverty and a direct association to the lower class and immigrant status in this country. Eugenics permitted the one race to differentiate between what was considered inferior races; furthermore, it promoted criminal acts like the sterilization of second-rate peoples for threatening the American identity.
In the United States, “eugenicists argued that the birth of defective persons created too great a social burden”; furthermore, in 1907, the United States implemented a state-sponsored sterilization program that started with “mentally defective persons or certain kinds of criminals” (Sofair and Kaldjian 314). By 1926, 23 of the states had adopted the sterilization laws and practiced them well after WWII (314). Many of the physicians that participated in this state-authorized program decided what patients possessed undesirable characteristics and sterilized them to avoid procreation and propagation of those traits (312). In no way could this decision be made objectively because of blatant racial biases. The problem with this argument and procedure is that no one has a right to decide the worth of a human life, regardless of their race, political beliefs or educational background. The physicians were motivated to see a blond haired and blue eyed society that was more representative of the Aryan archetype.
These attitudes became part of the national discourse in the United States and
Germany. I have focused on the eugenics movement and the situation in the U.S. in regards to the racial conflicts as they pertain to my research and understanding of the white American identity. I find that the situation in Germany can be viewed as a possible 123
outcome of what would have become of the United States if the eugenics movement and the state-sponsored sterilization program had continued. In Germany, these findings led the eugenics movement to involuntary euthanasia or mercy killings of those considered not fit to withstand the social demands of the time. According to the NBC 17 Internet site, many of the states in the U.S. involved in the eugenics and sterilization programs are currently standing trials in order to compensate the thousands of victims affected by the sterilization programs. Each individual state is having to pay for violating the human and civil rights of the victims. These violations changed the manner in which people saw each other because the motivation to become and maintain an Anglo-Saxon identity took priority to respecting the human and civil rights of the minority. The United States is facing difficult challenges in regards to the racial and ethnographic integration within the borderlines of this country.
The increment in the immigrant population and the current status of the economy have focused the attention on those living here as undocumented citizens. Immigrants come to the United States because of the opportunities for economic prosperity and the freedom to practice a chosen culture; moreover, they are confronted with the ideology of the dominant culture, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The racial, ethnic, ideological and cultural identity has become challenged when the different races come into contact. In a reactionary attempt to stop or reduce the waves of immigrants coming into this country, the U.S. government has shut the door for Latin America. The rhetoric in this country has been one of anti-immigrant sentiment, established by government officials, politicians, and citizens. This has led more anti-immigrant legislation and the 124
militarization of the border. The anti-immigrant attitudes have led to the reinvention and reconstruction of racial identities. I am especially concerned for those addressed at the
NBPM.
The NBPM: Reinventing and Reconstructing racial identities
During my multiple visits I noticed that the modus operandi of the museum is to revisit and rewrite American history in order to serve the current needs and discourse of the times. This is problematic because the museum is located near the U.S.-Mexico border. The location and the members of the surrounding communities have become a key factor in this new way of telling history. The exhibits are representative of the experiences and contact between the members of the Border Patrol and those living in the border communities. Furthermore, these exhibits have become problematic for many living in the area because they are not being represented in their own locus of enunciation. In addition, in some instances the members of this community might recognize similar traits that resemble them in the characters portrayed in the exhibits.
Unfortunately, these traits are stereotypes portrayed through the eyes of the agents.36
These "minorities," are not being represented in a good light inside the museum's walls. I can recall exhibits honoring the fallen Border Patrol agents and the Texas Rangers. I can visualize an exhibit dedicated to honoring those victims from the attack on September 11 and the Statue of Liberty. Nevertheless, there is no mention of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo or any of the indigenous populations that surround the region. I only mention the Treaty because it had such an impact on the creation of the border that I thought it
36 Please refer to Chapter 5 Homies in the House to see the representations of Latinos or Hispanics in the NBPM. 125
should have been included in the exhibits. I also think that the indigenous population should have been included in the exhibits since they dedicate a whole section to tracking and no specific native population is credited for this exhibit.
Donald Preziosi in his book Rethinking Art History: Meditations on a Coy
Science, states that “Visual environments orchestrate signification, deploy and stage relations of power, and construct and embody ideologies through the establishment of frameworks of legibility. Such frameworks incorporate and fabricate cues as to how they are to be reckoned with by individual subjects and groups” (quoted in Sanchez-
Tranquilino 55). I find that Preziosi's discussion of visual environments can be applied to the exhibits in the NBPM. The staff is very careful in the manner in which each exhibit is orchestrated and given signification. Many of these exhibits deploy and stage relations of power.37 Edward Soja, in his book Postmodern Geographies, states: "We must be insistently aware of how space can be made to hide consequences from us, how relations of power and discipline are inscribed in the apparently innocent spatiality of social life, how human geographies become filled with politics and ideology" (6). By situating my research within the framework presented by Soja, I find that the museum masks the relations of power in many of the exhibits and the unsuspecting visitor is then left to read and interpret them within the museum space. The exhibits offer political and ideological references and instill a sense of hierarchy that is perceived from the moment of arrival.
The museum does this by deploying a medley of different representations, like the cowboy, soldier, and the hypermasculine figure of the white American male.
37 Please refer to Chapter 3 where I discuss the NBPM, the relations of power and nation building. 126
The NBPM: Agency and Power Relations
Language Discourse and Identity Socialization: An Efficient Resource
Language discourse has also played an important role in establishing these relations of power between the representations of the agent and the immigrant. Norman
Fairclough, in his book Language and Power, addresses the connection between the use of language and the inequality of power relations. Language will produce signification depending on the purpose it serves in a particular contexts. According to Fairclough, in order to keep a relation of power, the dominant agent must continue reaffirming that power in order to keep it (57). This power is not always individual since it can be shared with a network or organization. In the NBPM, language plays a very important role in the power relations because it establishes an hierarchy within and outside the museum.
In order to reinforce their power, the museum staff has implemented different texts to promote a dominant position. The museum website, in the very first page of the site has a quote that states "National Border Patrol Museum Where Heroes and Legends
Come Alive." By referring to the agent as a hero, the staff reinforces and imposes a dominant relation of power. This reinforcement exists in real space, not just virtually. In the entrance to the museum hangs a sign that reads, "Thru These Portals Pass the
Finest Agents in the Border Patrol" (see figure Figure 4.1 4.1). There is also a hall dedicated to "In the 127
Line of Duty Memorial Room" and "In Honor of Those Who Gave Their Lives." In these cases, language is used to glorify or romanticize the Border Patrol agent by using vocabulary like "honor" and "gave their lives". Thus, discursively, the NBPM constructs a particular notion of the Border Patrol agents, as figures who have valiantly sacrificed their lives for the betterment of the nation.
The use of pronouns is an important language tool used to feed those relations of power. Linguist Anna De Fina studies how certain texts and discourses can highlight ones identities and ideals through the use of specific pronouns (379). De Fina proposes that the selection of certain pronouns emphasizes how one presents and represents oneself in relation to other individuals and groups of people. The socialization of identity through language is done through the use of pronouns like we, I, our, they, you, he and those that demonstrate possession and integration like my, mine, our, ours, and your.
The interaction between the staff and the visitor has presented an opportunity to socialize and negotiate ones identity and reinforce certain ideologies depending on the person whom they are interacting with. For example, in one of my trips to the museum, I had a conversation with the curator. She continuously used the pronoun "we" to refer to the activities done by the Border Patrol agency. She stated, "we have worked so hard to keep our border safe... we have a long distinguished history and we try to show that through our picture." She was addressing some of the photographs of the first agents in the Border Patrol. I was intrigued by her use of the pronoun "we" and so I asked her if she had worked for the Border Patrol or Customs agency. She answered no but she felt she was one of them because she shared their same visions. It was then that I understood 128
that her choice of words were helping her insert herself in the dominant group and thus establish a relation of power where she held the upper hand. Not only did she reaffirmed her space in which none of the visitors belonged but she placed herself in a dominant position even though she was never an official member of the Border Patrol institution.
Through her conversation and use of pronouns she integrated herself in a national and dominant identity.
Another critical concept that helps me understand power relations is Sociologist
Erving Goffman's notion of framing. Much of Goffman´s research involves personal interactions and in Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, he studies the manner in which social interaction is produced based on faҫades or frames of our daily life. Frames are part of bigger structures and in order to function they have to be played with specific keys which are "the set of conventions by which a given activity, one already meaningful in terms of some primary framework, is transformed by the participants to be something quite else" (43-44). These keys are considered the signals that allow us to interpret the interaction or "keying" between two subjects.
Framing is an activity that is done individually. On the other hand, keying is a process that is done collectively and socially. In order for all these concepts to be put into practice, all the participants have to have a sense of awareness or intersubjectivity.
In situating my work within Goffman's theoretical approach, I understand frames as constructions of reality that are articulated and acquire meaning once they associate with others. All social encounters or activities can be considered from various frames or faҫades that are related to each other. These frames are later used as models to refer to 129
other frames. These frames can be organized symbolically by whether they are social, national or personal. It is through these frames that as interlocutors we project distinctive personal characteristics and set the conditions for interaction.
How does framing come into play in the museum? In this apparent innocent spatiality, how are the power relations being played? How are politics and ideologies being played? During one of my visits I noted several examples of framing. First, I will refer back to my conversation with the staff member and the use of pronouns to establish her connection with the Border Patrol agency even though she was never an agent herself. In the process of keying by her use of pronouns and narrative she chose to frame her connection to the Border Patrol agency and disassociate herself from the frame I had constructed as a visitor. In this instance, we shared the museum's space; however, neither of our frames were shared.
In another unrelated conversation during one of my visits, which I will address more in detail in Chapter 5, my friends38 started to tease me by asking me if I had legal documentation in Spanish: “¿Tienes tus papeles?” I of course, answered sarcastically and in English, “Yes.” As part of their hazing and sensing in my tone that I disliked the joke, they continued to tease me about fitting the racial profile of what they referred to as an
“illegal”. Not satisfied with my reaction, they took me to see one of the displays of miniature dolls that resembled me - "the illegal alien."39 In that moment, I became a very important part of the museum exhibit. In the act of asking for my papers (keying), my
38 In this particular visit, the friends I am referring to in this chapter are Border Patrol agents 39 Please refer to Chapter 5 Homies In the House for a more in depth analysis of the construction and reconstruction of immigrant identities 130
friends established a frame that was already superior in our power relations because they constructed themselves that way discursively and positioned me in an inferior position - the immigrant. Once I established my own frame as a first generation immigrant, I negotiated with them for the space; however, there was no chance of my getting ahead since from the beginning I started in an inferior position. Not only did they tease me for my position as an immigrant but also for being a so-called minoritarian. The experiences in the border region became reactivated inside the museum space. Once I left the building, I continued to question my identity and started to feel inferior and illegal. This incident is an example of how power relations can leave a person feeling marginalized and disconnected from their own homeland; and how these interactions can deconstruct the intent of the museum by challenging it with ones presence.
Questioning my identity forced me to question the definition of identity in general. Cultural theorist and sociologist Stuart Hall presents identity as not fixed, but the point of suture between the social and the psychic. He presents identity as "the sum of the (temporary) positions offered by a social discourse in which you are willing for the moment to invest. It is where the psyche is able to invest in a public space, to locate itself in public discourse, and from there, act and speak" (Osbourne & Segal 401). It is then that the identity establishes a point of enunciation and a point of agency. Hall also presents the "self" as that composed by "different positionalities or identities that you are willing to subject yourself to be 'subjected' to" (Osbourne & Segal 401). The identity is a model of difference but not a binary difference but one of a spectrum of positionalities. 131
Identity never refers to similarity, even though it is more significant when people are similar. However, dealing with ones identity is more complex than it appears.
Identities are developed through difference and not similarities (Bucholtz & Hall 369).
The similarities and the differences allow us to imagine ourselves as part of a group and this produces a distance between those that we perceive as different. When an individual decides to belong to a group, that person does not do it based on a pre-existent and recognizable similarity, but because of the agency and power he may obtain from that particular group. This process does not occur to discover and recognize our similarities but to reinvent similarities through minimizing the differences that come from the contact and juxtaposition with the "other". For this reason, identities are combined, displaced and modified to meet our needs in certain circumstances. Some of these identities are more real than others (Bucholtz & Hall 369). Identities are also historical constructions.
In the case of the NBPM, the constructions are based on the historical processes of the
Anglo Saxon identity coming into contact with the indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican past.
Linguists Bambi Schieffelin & Elinor Ochs present language socialization as an interactive process that helps construct a concept of ourselves and the roles that we are to attain from this interaction (165). Language socialization will help in understanding how people become competent members of a social group and why language is such an important part of this process.
Every individual is responsible for selecting and actively participating in the process of constructing their own social environment. One of the main points in 132
socializing is creating and maintaining an understanding with a group of people while sharing other attitudes with another. This paradigm demonstrates that all interaction is a social experience. Each of the participants of the social groups will accommodate, inform themselves and adapt to other participants based on their language use. The members of each social group have access to certain linguistic resources available to construct and interpret certain social actions.
Narratives also play an important role in the construction of identities.
Sociologist Pablo Vila proposes that all of us develop a construction of stories and narratives in order to understand each other while understanding, and interacting with the
"other" (228-238). Vila also adds that identities are relational and are always in the process of change.
Personal narratives offer a frame of understanding the current situation of our lives. Through the narratives we accept certain social acts and reject other while socializing our identity. In each social interaction we have an active or principal agent and a passive or secondary agent. The interaction can take place individually or collectively. This same interaction is developed with the participation of all agents, active or passive, and based on the sequence of processes to develop a dynamic of socialization (Beristáin 5). According to Ochs and psychologists Lisa Capps, personal narratives connect individuals to society, constituting a crucial resource in the socialization of emotions, attitudes and identities. This process develops relations and constructs memberships in certain communities. 133
Reminiscence also plays an important role in the construction of identities and representation in the NBPM. Part of reminiscence involves a performance on the part of those stimulating the memories and the visitors who have to participate in cooperatively producing memories and meaning. There is an understanding that the artifacts are placed in a simulated environment in order to recall repressed desires and connect with the past and present. The museum takes an important role in teaching about American history.
However, I must ask whose history is being represented?
The Artifacts Frozen in Time
Visiting the different rooms and displays in the NBPM allows the visitor to interpret all the information given about a particular time period and for a brief moment transport himself to that specific moment in time. As a visitor one needs to have a better understanding of how the artifacts and objects in the museum came to be and how they are being presented because this will allow one to further analyze each of the exhibitions.
I want to address how the museum has presented many of the exhibitions and how the artifacts and objects utilized in the exhibitions are set up to serve a specific purpose. In order to accomplish this, I have to first describe the set up for the exhibition halls.
Many of the exhibitions are constructed by putting together different objects used by the Border Patrol in previous eras. Most of the objects are the actual materials used out in the field while on duty. One of the wings offers a wall to the supposed immigrant artifacts confiscated by the agents. Another two walls present the plaques of names of agents that have died in the line of duty and plaques with names of patrons of the museum. In the background, the museum recreates scenes on the field by playing 134
different documentaries and film productions about the agency and their work. One of the largest halls contains a series of decommissioned vehicles as well as miniature reproductions of the Border Patrol vehicles of the past.
The preservations of many of the vehicles and objects in the museum, has become one of the major reasons for establishing the museum. Some of the recovered vehicles include an antique car that dates back to 1931, a helicopter, a jeep, a sports car and all terrain motorcycles. Most of these were scheduled to be destroyed when the museum requested to have them donated as an attempt to preserve the history and traditions of the
Border Patrol. Many of the vehicles serve to glorify the way the Border Patrol agents see themselves. By having a sample of the first cars utilized by the Border Patrol, the museum recalls events in history and displays them in present time. This form of exhibition allows agents and visitor to reminisce about the origins of the agency. By doing so, the museum also evokes the same behaviors and attitudes that form part of the dominant discourse. These attitudes and behaviors also helped shape the representation of agents as protectors and defenders of the land.
The use of vehicles in displays also allows the museum to play with time. In one display the visitor will find a reference to the early 1900’s; meanwhile, by moving over one step to another display the visitor flashes forward to the late 1900’s and again to the twentieth Figure 4.2 century. The sports car is also one of these 135
vehicles that helped create and shape representations for the agents. The Camaro that was utilized by the Border Patrol in speed chases is now on display (see figure 4.2). This has led for visitors to see the Border Patrol reinvented as more modern and has presented the agent as an action figure. Ironically, this vehicle was also the inspiration for the miniature racing car, a concept vehicle that has yet to be built for what would be the
Border Patrol racing team (see figure 4.3). One example of how the reconstruction of history takes place in the museum is the display of old Border Patrol vehicles and helicopters. The visitor is “allowed” to sit inside the vehicle or helicopter and for a brief moment pretend that he or she forms part of that specific time period. This action puts everything into perspective for the visitor trying to acquire a new experience in relation to the Border Patrol. The visitor simulates and is thus able to relate to the agent while sitting inside one of the vehicles as the curator and staff approve of their actions.
In the same wing, one of the displays holds the work by artists and supervisors with the Border Patrol, Ned Thomas and Juan Alonso. Thomas is stationed in Eagle
Pass, Texas, and Alonso is stationed in Tucson, Arizona.40 Their work includes
miniature scale reproductions of the Border
Patrol vehicles of the past. Their models
include replicas of the cars and trucks used in
the Border Patrol since 1924. Thomas and
Figure 4.3 Alonso have dedicated much of their time to
accurately create models, drawings and replicas
40 This information is found in the description cards in the exhibition. 136
that are now on display in the museum. A combination of narratives and reminiscence through the use of artifacts have created specific representations of which I address next.
The hypermasculinity and the American male figure
I address very different, yet related representations of the agent in the museum.
They are related in the fact that we are talking about the same iconic figure, the Border
Patrol agent, represented in different manners. The first one was the cowboy followed by the hero and soldier representation. The first representation addresses issues of nation and race since it involves the relationships between entities in the frontier, a locus of conquest. The second representation of the hero and soldier involves the ideological representation of nation and patriotism. Before I address these representations, I am proposing that these come together to create a one supra representation, the hypermasculine male. I have decided to discuss it first separate from the other two representations because it involves gender representation of the American male identity which will frame my discussion for the other aforementioned representations. The hypermasculine male representation involves issues with race and gender but specifically in how it is formed around idealized and stereotypical notions of masculinity. In Chapter
1, I discussed Gillian Rose's analysis of Michel Foucault's concern with power where she states that "certain kinds of masculinity are produced through a discursive visuality"
(137). I find that the hypermasculine roles in the museum are discursive constructions of the American male. The roles of males in the museum are not passive; on the contrary, in many instances they can be perceived as aggressive. These representation are very well articulated and developed in the museum space. 137
One major factor in the development of the representation of the hypermasculine male and narrative is the fact that women are almost absent from the NBPM. I can recall two photos of women Border Patrol agents, one of which had a tag labeling the first female agent. In this particular space, women do not fit together in a coherent manner, yet the representations of men are relatively congruent. As a reflection of identity, this museum has managed to fade women into the background and keep them in a passive role. At first, I wondered how the NBPM accomplished this and how gender and sexual identity became responsible for transmitting signification. I referenced the work on feminist theory and museum representations and find that "sexual identity and difference are so strongly charged with meaning, and vice versa, in museum narratives, precisely because these identities, for each of us, are incomplete, unsettled and unsettling"
(Macdonald and Fyfe 111). Each of us has an understanding of the gender roles that we play in our daily lives. In the museum, these roles are no longer representative of our society since the museum develops its own gender role, the hypermasculine male, and excludes the female representation.
By situating my work within Goffman's theoretical approach which sees the hypermasculine male as having character and the control of emotions as a virtue, courage and integrity, I find that my research is more in accordance with what is presented by
Scheff. Social scientist Thomas J. Scheff suggests that contrary to what Goffman proposes, hypermasculinity "is a fatal flaw in character that can lead to violence or at least the taken-for-granted acceptance of violence" (163). At first glance, I found that the hypermasculine male representation is present in the museum as proposed by Goffman 138
because I found many examples of the Border Patrol agent as virtuous, courageous and full of integrity. Once I started to analyze these representations more in detail, I found that they are following Scheff's theoretical framework because these representations have led to violence or the acceptance of violence. The following are only some of the examples.
The museum has exhibited several plaques to honor the agency and the fallen agents. The Code of the Frontline (Appendix A) and the poem "Fallen Agent", written by Doug Mosier, from the El Paso Sector (Appendix B), are narratives that have contributed to the hypermasculine representation. I have chosen only segments of these to illustrate this representation. I first want to address the Code of the Frontline. The fragment of the code that I have chosen to discuss is the following:
Code of the Frontline
[...]
The flames of freedom, reach the sky
Bringing glory, from on high
We will fight to keep that fire burning
[...]
Watching day and night
We will stay the course, and be the light
Standing side by side
We will hold the line, and toe the line 139
[...]
The imagery used in the code illustrates what Scheff refers to a flaw in hypermasculinity: violence. Moreover, it is displaying aspects of the hypermasculinity representation when it talks about fighting, standing side by side, and holding the line.
When the code references the flames of freedom, it is addressing the destruction left after a battle. The code is also describing how they will work day and night as vigilantes and they will stand together holding the line which represents the border. They will hold the line and start battles no matter what the outcome might be. The narrative in the code is one that resonates with most of the rhetoric within the Border Patrol agents and one that they work to disperse in the border region.
The poem entitled "Fallen Agent" is another example of the narrative they are trying to instill in the discourse of the border.
[...]
full-gun volley
he is now immortalized,
sweat and blood
stitched in every flag’s fold
[...]
on the border,
he still rides the plains
on horseback
or battered four-wheel drive 140
with that wry grin, and the seasoned edge of a desert cowboy in the end, his patience is what prevailed over formidable adversaries who learned to listen to the
Rio Grande through canyons to the sea we will remember the quiet warrior still clad in green, spit shined and salty as earth lifeblood of the border for 85 years, your tales have spun like so many MGM classics, winded palaminos and chance encounters with liquor runners and drug whores now your pistol and chaps 141
lie in wait
remembering your vigilance
like the day that man killed John
in Dallas
[...]
The poem is referencing the cowboy, soldier and hero representation all in one. From the very beginning, it places the agent in a place of power by immortalizing him in sweat and blood. In an act of patriotism, the sweat and blood becomes stitched in the folds of the
American flag. The image of blood and sacrifice is later reinforced when the agent is portrayed as the lifeblood of the border.
The poem recalls on the image of the cowboy when it positions the agent riding on horseback on the edge of the desert, which also refers to the frontier when it mentions they learned to listen to the river and came into contact with the adversaries. This contact is also referenced later in the poem when it recalls chance encounters with liquor runners, and drug whores. The description of the border is of a place of sin and illegality.41 By doing so, the agent is once again empowered in the border region. This is again represented when the poem focuses on the color green of the Border Patrol uniform and references the agent as a warrior. Again, all these representations are creating a hypermasculine figure of the Border Patrol agent.
The museum has presented different other narratives that have established this hypermasculine representation. The use of the slogan "Mean Green" to refer to the
41 Please refer to Chapter 1 where I discuss the different forms of visualizing the border. 142
mechanism utilized by the Border Patrol agents in their pursuit of the undocumented immigrant, embellishes t-shirts, mugs, stuffed animals, and other paraphernalia.42 The narrative and purpose of these words have been to instill fear and anger in those dealing with the Border Patrol. The use of "Mean Green" is also a form of taunting and competing with those external sources that have no connection with the Border Patrol.
Border Patrol agents will refer to themselves as part of the "mean green" machine and will exclude those not involved or aware of their mission. Scheff states that the
"hypermasculine pattern promotes competition, rather than connection between persons"
(163). The fact that this slogan is used to only refer to a specific group of people and their tactics of operation, and that it is used to intimidate and instill fear proves that it is used as part of the hypermasculine pattern.
The Cowboy Within
I address the different representations and
ideologies exhibited in the museum in the order
that I perceived them during my visits. I have
studied these representations as a visitor and a
scholar. I have to say that prior to beginning my
research for this project, I had questioned and Figure 4.4 confronted some of these representations during
42 The intention of naming this project Mean Green: A Visual Cultural Analysis of the National Border Patrol Museum is done to promote a change in the discourse of these words. I am using mean in reference to the different meanings and significations found in the NBPM space. 143
my prior visits. I now want to address the oldest of these representations: the cowboy
(see figure 4.4).
In the early years of border surveillance, the environment in the region was that of the frontier. A constant battle between cowboys and Indians became the metaphor for all the conflicts surrounding the region. Prior to establishing the Border Patrol, Jefferson
Davis Milton was one of the most renowned Texas Ranger and key figure in establishing the agency as we know it today. He took responsibility for protecting the border from
Indians, robbers and bandits, and created an identity that gave agency to the Border
Patrol.
This representation of the Border Patrol agent, as presented by Milton, resembles many of the representations of the American Anglo-Saxon identity discussed earlier in this chapter. The image of a white male riding his horse into sunset and protecting his land and freedom is present in many areas of our history. In the Border Patrol and in the
NBPM, this image has become part of its emblematic iconography (see figure 4.5).
Referring back to the beginning of this chapter and my previous discussion about
Manifest Destiny, the Anglo-Saxon superiority complex and the government involvement in the eugenics movement, there is no doubt that many in this country would believe the white Anglo Saxon male Figure 4.5 to be a realistic representation of an 144
American.
The first Border Patrol agents were represented by the image of the cowboy in the
West. In the early 1900's, men were recruited as mounted guards (1904-1924) in the effort to detain Chinese immigrants and to control traffic to the U.S. (Sadowski-Smith
73). In 1915, after the signing of the Plan of San Diego in Texas, the government ordered the Texas Rangers and the armed forces to suppress all insurrection by the Mexicans
(Dunn 9). They had been Texas Rangers and had come from families that had been struggling to protect their lands for generations. The frontier was present in their backyards and they had learned to defend themselves and survive in the most precarious of situations.
The image of the frontiersmen in battle is present in the imagery of the Border
Patrol agent. Their attire is based on the what cowboys would wear when the agency was first established. It is composed of a ranger or Stetson hat and boots. Many of the agents stationed in the southwest are still relying on horses to travel in the canyons and dessert. The image of the agent traveling on horse has contributed to the myth of the cowboy in the wild West and has romanticized the life of a Border
Patrol agent and reinforced those representations and narratives exhibited in the NBPM (see figure 4.6).
During my travels to Douglas, Arizona, I was able to witness these agents in action. They utilize this Figure 4.6 145
transportation method to travel into the mountains to look for immigrants and drug traffickers in the area. Without the aid of the horses, traveling in these regions would be close to impossible. The cowboy representation has transcended through all levels of media and culture, including the presence in the NBPM.
The most impressive representation of the cowboy has been the 20-foot steel sculpture of John Ward mounting his horse Lee O’Daniel, that stands outside of the museum43. This sculpture not only embodies the spirit of the Border Patrol, but it revitalizes the long tradition of “honor.” The dedication ceremony for this statue took place on May 28, 2008. The statue was built and donated by John Carter, a third generation Border Patrol officer (Ward and Lee Pamphlet). The museum holds many historical artifacts that have become important to understanding the contribution of the
Border Patrol in American history. Just like artifacts, statues are one example of a history text because they help in registering identity. In the case of the Ward/O'Daniel statue, it is part of registering identity. This particular statue, in its presence alone has deployed and staged a relation of power by the sole reason of standing in the entrance of the museum. It has constructed and embodied an ideology that is hard to counter attack due to the framework it presents. The enormity of this statue is only a reflection of the work and master narrative intended to present and propagate. Notions of identity, ideology and memory lay a foundation for the master narrative that no longer stops at the blatant romanticism of the border as the wild, wild West. This sculpture embodies the spirit of the Border Patrol and the long tradition of honor. Furthermore, it has
43 Please refer to http://www.borderpatrolmuseum.com/ for more information regarding the statue and other exhibits. 146
constructed and reconstructed other identities and representations such as the Border
Patrol agents serving as an American soldier.
The Hero and Soldier Within
During the 20th century, the United States has been very strict in the manner in which it approaches political and immigration issues. Most recently, this has become evident when there is an emphasis on militarizing and protecting the border. By
"militarization," I refer to what sociologist Timothy Jay Dunn presents as "the use of military rhetoric and ideology, as well as military tactics, strategy, technology, equipment, and forces" (3). The United States has created a security system equipped with agents and the latest technological mechanisms to aid in the surveillance of the border. Recent changes in wardrobe and structure have streamlined the Border Patrol's efforts into a more military like system. This has created and reinforced a soldier ideology for the agents. Consequently, this ideology has also shifted the representations exhibited in the NBPM.
The cowboy is a very important representation and it has been in the making since prior to the establishment of the Border Patrol agency. The Border Patrol agent is the direct inheritor of the cowboy construction of masculinity along the border. However, it has only been since the late 70's that we see the presence of the military in the border region as we know it today. The military presence was established as an attempt by government agencies to address the issues of illegal immigration and a ramped human smuggling and drug trafficking. The soldier is one of the most recent representations in the NBPM. 147
Events in history have shaped the identity of the U.S. No other event in recent history has caused for American identity to become challenged like the events of
September 11, 2001. This event brought the discussion of identity back to the forefront of our national discourse. After the attacks, the soldier image became a representational turning point. The soldier as the American hero has become only the second most represented identity construction since the cowboy because it is the most abundant in the exhibits in the NBPM.
Nevertheless, how did the image of the border agent as a militarized entity become such an important iconic figure? In this apparent innocent spatiality, how are the power relations being played? How are politics and ideologies being organized and presented? In order for this representation to function within the museum´s walls, death has to play a key part of its representation. The border also plays a key factor in the creation of the soldier representation because it is considered a metaphor for the war zone where the agent is always being caught between life and death in a constant conflict with another subject. In this case, the conflict with the undocumented immigrant can only be resolved through annihilation or assimilation (Barrera Herrera 222). The NBPM contributes to the creation of the imaginary that glorifies the agent and distorts the image of the immigrant.44 For example, one of the main halls contains many of the objects confiscated from the immigrants by the Border Patrol agents. This particular exhibition has not only changed the agent representation but also the immigrant representation as well.
44 Please refer to Chapter 5 Homies in the House for a discussion on the construction and reconstruction of racial identities of the undocumented immigrant 148
Another hall provides a very colorful display of the Statue of Liberty and a poster commemorating the attacks of September 11. The museums does not provide the names of agents involved in the attacks or the effects these had on the agency. Having a display for the Statue of Liberty is a contradiction to the narrative they are trying to present. The ideology presented by the statue is one that welcomes all immigrants into this country, yet the NBPM is presenting a contrasting narrative. The manipulation of these representations is necessary because it validates the concrete strategies of control like the militarization of the border and allows the Border
Patrol agent to be portrayed as the "border Figure 4.7 soldier" and defender of the nation, a very strong patriotic symbol. These representations have presented an instilled patriotism that is not representative of the narratives outside the NBPM space. The portrayal of the hero and soldier have also created another representation within the museum: the very manly
American male figure.
Other artifacts in the museum have contributed to the hypermasculine representation. For example, the museum holds large collections of all terrain automobiles and helicopters, displays of confiscated weapons and a varied amount of glass cases exhibiting their different caliber guns. Referring back to the previous representations, the automobiles and helicopters have permitted the agents to move in all terrains and perform their tasks as cowboys in the old west and soldiers in war. The 149
confiscated weapons have added a different perception of the hypermasculine Border
Patrol agent; the one risking his life for the safekeeping of all Americans. The display of the agent's guns add to the mystic of the hero representation. All artifacts give and are given meaning through the interactions and movements between the concrete and abstract. The type of public visiting the museum will have a different effect each time they come into contact with the artifacts. Signification is subjective to the visitor. In some instances it can be concrete as with the presence of the automobiles or the displays of guns because the visitor will read into their presence in the museum. In the case of the
"Mean Green" logo and the statue outside of the museum, this has become more abstract because the visitor will take meaning and give meaning to these statues in a more subjective manner, based on their own background and experience.
This chapter has presented the origins of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideology as a representation of the American identity. I focus on describing its origins and its effects on the media, politics and cultural representations. The NBPM has played an important role in reinforcing these ideologies and identities by propagating them in the museum space. It is in this particular space that the cultural representations most visible to the visitor, reflect a dominant, agenda and embody strong messages about racial hierarchy and social order. The romanticizing of identities that are only present for those in the dominant class. In the varied representations discussed in this chapter, the government has contributed greatly in positioning the American white male in a place of superiority. The NBPM, as a separate entity has acquired a sense of superiority that is inflicted over the general public that visits the location. I believe this is done because of 150
the influence of the Border Patrol, a government entity.45 From the moment one enters into the museum, we are automatically establishing a power relationship where we become inferior. In addition, I believe that the power relations and representation become more evident once we start walking the museum exhibits. As soon as the visitor drives into the museum parking lot, he will be confronted by a huge 20-foot steel sculpture of a cowboy. The enormity of this statue is only a reflection of the master narrative intended to set us up in an inferior power relation. This power relation does not end in the signification of artifacts; it continues to the use of language and socialization.
45 You can find more narratives, representations and other samples of power relations of the Border Patrol in La Migra me hizo los mandados by Alicia Alarcon and "The Border Patrol State" by Leslie Marmon Silko. 151
CHAPTER 5
HOMIES IN THE HOUSE
THE CONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF RACIAL IDENTITIES
(PART II)
Differences of function by social groups never create problems unless one
group has the sense that it is being exploited by another. Then class
struggle ensues. (Karl Marx xv)
"Big Dopey" walks with a little swagger and always seems pensive. His sleepy eyes never give away his thoughts. He likes to observe while others speak and never interferes unless he has something important to say. He likes wearing his clean, comfortable, baggy clothes for those long rides when cruising in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He enjoys driving his winning 64 Impala and never looks for trouble unless trouble finds him.46 Even though "Big
Dopey" has always been a discrete character, he now finds himself entrapped in a glass display within the walls of the
National Border Patrol Museum in El Paso, Texas (see figure 5.1). I first met "Big Dopey" on one of my visits to Figure 5.1 the museum and he became an important reference in my research.
46 A biography of all the Homies characters, including "Bid Dopey" can be found in the Homies website: http://www.homies.tv/ 152
I visited the museum with two friends who had been Border Patrol agents for several years.47 We arrived early to observe everything the museum has to offer. I was
“lucky” because the museum was showing a documentary about the Border Patrol and my friends decided to help by answering some of my questions. After viewing the documentary and having a pertinent discussion about the film, my friends started to harass me by asking me if I had legal documentation in Spanish: “¿Tienes tus papeles?”
At first, I answered “Yes” in a sarcastic tone and in English, thinking that somehow I would empower myself by using the language of the dominant culture. Needless to say, I did not like the fact that they were teasing me and that I had become the butt of the joke48. They sensed my objection and found it necessary to continue with the harassment throughout our whole visit. They continued to question my status and laughed about the whole idea of my supposed illegality. The questions suddenly turned from asking for my legal documents to me fitting the appropriate racial profile. They invited me to take a look at one of the displays without realizing the impact it would later have on me. This particular display and the harassing about my legal status became the focal point and reason for working on this project.
This particular display contains miniature dolls that, according to my friends, resembled me - "the illegal alien"49. These miniature dolls, called Homies, are mostly
47 The names of the participants in this conversation have been withheld for reasons of privacy and security. The conversation took place in 2007. 48 This conversation has been briefly discussed in a previous chapter. 49 For this project, I will refer to everyone who migrated illegally to the United States as "illegal aliens" and "illegal immigrants". I chose these terms in order to make a connection between the exhibits in the NBPM, the political rhetoric in this country and the dehumanizing manner in which these individuals continue to be treated. I am aware that the act of entering this country without their presence being recorded or documented is what is illegal and not the human beings themselves. I could have chosen terms 153
known for being collectible toys; furthermore, they and I had become, in my opinion, a very important part of the exhibit in the museum (see figure 5.2).
After this particular and life changing incident, I started to reflect on the events that transpired that day and how I felt so small in my 5’9” frame as well as very inferior to my friends. I could not understand that even though we came from the same background and hometown, in that brief moment we were so different. The feeling of disenfranchisement had become, inexplicably, part of my museum experience. Most
importantly, aspects of
illegality and citizenship played
an important factor in making
me feel disenfranchised from
the whole experience. This
incident has become such an Figure 5.2 iconic memory because it has forced me to question my identity, origins, ethnic background and race, as well as question my own citizenship and sense of legality in this country. I have encountered my own racial conflicts living in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona, as well as traveling through the many checkpoints in the border region and traveling internationally.
However, I had never experienced that feeling of displacement as I did on this day.
like undocumented immigrant, unregistered immigrant or immigrants; however, the connotation in the use of these words would not have the same effect in my work. 154
The events also proposed new questions regarding the racial, cultural and the political situation faced by those that indeed are "illegal aliens"50 and yet function as citizens in this country. How are these disenfranchised people going through similar experiences on a daily basis? What is a citizen and why are "illegals" not considered citizens? What role does race and class play in our responsibilities as citizens? Why can we feel "illegal" even when all our documentation is in order? Does race change the rules of the citizenship game? How is illegality a factor in cultural citizenship? These and other concerns are addressed in this chapter.
In this chapter, I discuss how certain ethnic groups have managed to construct and reconstruct their identity in order to (re)claim their agency in the border. By considering the aspects of race, class, citizenship and legality, I demonstrate how the NBPM has, in some instances, reinvented or reconstructed ethnic and racial identities by revisiting history. This is done to serve the current needs and rhetoric of the times. In studying these reconstructions, I have stepped out of the museum space to analyze them within their locus of enunciation and understand the effects and repercussions on the immigrant community in the region.
50 The undocumented immigrant has been scrutinized and labeled in many different forms, in order to understand their presence and function in the border. This act has led for them to be portrayed as criminals. The alien representation can be traced back to Operation Wetback, when the deportees and farmers were notified that “the day of the wetback was over” (Lytle Hernandez 170). They have been known as wetbacks, aliens, foreigners and criminals. The Chief Enforcement Officer of the Southwest recommended that “in its place a true designation should be used, both orally and otherwise, in our contacts with each other, the public and the press” (Lytle Hernandez 170). He wanted the words ‘criminal aliens’ to be used for immigrants with criminal records, and ‘deportable alien’ for immigrants with no criminal records. National and local officials agreed with the change but wanted to refer to the ‘deportable alien’ as a ‘border violator’. Soon after this change took effect, “the Border Patrol began to produce public documents, such as ‘How American Labor Benefits from Removal of the ‘Wetback’ which slowly led to the reader thinking of illegal Mexican immigrants as ‘illiterate farm laborers who came from Mexico to work in the fields’ to a ‘border violator, a fugitive in a foreign country” (Lytle Hernandez 170). 155
The Struggle Between Race, Ethnicity, and Citizenship
In the last decade the racial and political divide between the different entities in the border has become aggravated by the anti-immigrant rhetoric propagated in the
United States. However, as I have been discussing in previous chapters, anti-immigrant sentiment is not recent. Prior to targeting the Latino population and Mexican immigrants, those coming from China, Ireland and Germany had been victims of anti-immigrant attacks. In the case of Mexican immigrants or of those from other Latin American countries, many have started to migrate between border states because of the fear of persecution and harassment by the Border Patrol, the police and the anti-immigrant groups of vigilantes. The anti-immigrant rhetoric has invaded government institutions in states like New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, just to name a few. For better or worse, the face for these states is changing and becoming more Latino, regardless of the efforts to stop it.
This is only a reflection of what is happening in the country as a whole. Everyone has started to question their origins and due to the narratives presented in politics and the media we look to fit into a collective identity in order to assure our survival. This has been occurring since the 1960's when the concept of America identity begins to be challenged. American identity was no longer "a national community of individuals sharing a common culture, history, and creed but a conglomerate of different races, ethnicities, and subnational cultures, in which individuals were defined by their group membership, not common nationality" (Huntington 142). Many of these attempts were 156
done to debilitate the American cultural belief system and identity. The focus became the effort to strengthen racial, ethnic, and cultural identities.
It has become very difficult to be an individual in this country because people have become afraid of being targeted. The right of free speech has become ineffective, especially, when dealing with immigration issues. Because of this, it has become even more difficult for the immigrants to find a space and a voice in this environment. And even worse, they are struggling to find positive representations in the mist of all the anti- immigrant discourse. There has been a change in the way immigrants have started to interact with each other because of the constant search for to a place to belong. They are disenfranchised from their countries and from the United States. This is where the perceptions of race, ethnicity, and citizenship come into play. Everyone searches through the different parts of their identity for something in common to hold on to. The terms race, ethnicity, and citizenship have become so interchangeable that everyone has trouble identifying themselves by them. I have defined these terms in relation to the focus of my research for this chapter. I am addressing the definitions of race, ethnicity, class, citizenship and legality in order to make sense of the construction and reconstruction of the racial identities of immigrants in the border region, but more specifically those representations exhibited in the museum.
As previously addressed, the term "race" has gone through some transformations making the word interchangeable with others such as "ethnicity" and "culture". As “a pigment of the imagination,” external factors like the socioeconomic status one holds, the personal cultural preferences and practices, and the behavioral parameters are used to 157
define and represent our race (Rumbaut quoted in Rose, P., 12). Along with some physical characteristics, other different characteristics as common denominators of human groups, like social and cultural traits, began to shape the definition of race
(Guillaumin 41). Race should not be confused with ethnicity which is the unique cultural and sociological patrimony that holds "distinctive patterns of family life, language, recreation, religion, and other customs that cause them to be differentiated from others"
(Rose, P., 15). Contrary to ethnicity, race is based and constructed on external factors borrowed from the community and people around us. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is a the national and cultural inheritance that we have since birth.
Our beliefs about our own race and how we perceive the race of others have led to racism, which is “a connection between looks and outlooks, between one’s genetic makeup and the way one thinks and acts. Furthermore, implicit in the idea of racism is the assumption of group-based superiority and inferiority” (Rose, P., 12). These two terms, race and racism, have become very important in understanding the power relations in the border and analyzing the reconstructions of identity in the NBPM. These get especially complicated when different racial entities have come into contact in the border region. In the case of the relations between the immigrant and the border agent, the relationship has now been exposed in the exhibits in the museum. I will address some of these examples later in the chapter.
Race has also played an important role in the establishment of citizenships because it is employed as a determining factor in the selection of its members.
"Citizenship" functions within the idea of membership and not necessarily that of 158
legality. All citizenships offer and require specific rights and obligations. Some of these include access to civil, political and social rights and obligations like the right to vote, to serve in political office, equality before the law and access to government benefits as well as services; moreover, obligations also include obeying the laws and regulations, paying taxes and when necessary, defend this country (Castles & Davidson 1). According to sociologist Stephen Castles and political scientist Alastair Davidson, the "boundaries of the nation-state are being eroded: millions of people have multiple citizenships and live in more than one country" (vii). For example, the United States has a transnational community of immigrants from Mexico that functions within the limits of the nation-state in both countries.
The immigrant community is also dealing with the fact that access to citizenship is being denied. Their citizen's rights have been denied due to "discrimination based on class, gender, ethnicity, race, religion and other criteria" (Castles & Davidson vii). They have been denied citizenship because they are perceived as not belonging. In the United
States, there has been an implicit understanding that immigrants will be accepted into
U.S. society only when they embrace the English language by using it as a communication tool in place of their own native language. They also need to take into account the pride in being an American. Most importantly, Americans have to follow similar religious principals as established by the Protestant identity. "They become
Americans only if they also migrate to America, participate in American life, learn
America's language, history, and customs, absorb America's Anglo-Protestant culture, and identify primarily with America rather than with their country of birth" (Huntington 159
339). In cases where immigrants are functioning within a society but are still not integrated as citizens, which includes many immigrants from many different countries, they are forced to find more drastic measures of integrating themselves into society, including assimilation, differential exclusion, multiculturalism, amalgamation, accommodation and acculturation.
Those seeking citizenship might find themselves following a process of cultural assimilation that might erode all of his own heritage culture since minorities are usually absorbed into the dominant culture and identity. Assimilation involves encouraging the would be potential citizens to learn the dominant language and become part of the social and cultural processes of the receiving community (Castles & Davidson 60).
"Throughout American history, people who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants have become Americans by adopting America's Anglo-Protestant culture and political values" (Huntington 61). The United States was established under the belief of assimilation. John Adams proposed that all new settler coming to the new world followed an act of accommodating "to the character, moral, political, and physical, of this country with all its compensating balances of good and evil" (quoted in Rose, P., 95).
The act of doing this entitles adapting to the American way of life in any way possible.
Differential exclusion proposes to accept immigrants under strict functional and temporal limits (Castles & Davidson 61). Such would be the case of guest workers, students, and professionals in different fields. They can come and work or study for a specific amount of time but will be required to go back to their country of origin. They will arrive to the United States as individuals and with no families. The most important 160
challenge for these processes is that no change in social and cultural influences should come about to the receiving country. Multiculturalism seeks to secure integration and cohesion of the whole populations (including ethnic and racial minorities) which includes a large number of immigrants (Castles & Davidson 160). Amalgamation involves taking the best traditions of the various nations and turn them into a dynamic unity (Rose, P.,
99). It can only be reached when certain aspects are met.
1) the immigrants' appearance and customs resemble those of the
dominant group
2) they arrive in small numbers
3) they are too far from their homeland to return to visit
4) they possess skills that the dominant group admire and need
(quoted in Rose, P., 100)
Accommodation involves cultural pluralism which requires "giving and taking and, most importantly, the sharing of and mutual respect for other ideas, customs, and values ." Peter Rose calls accommodation as the "mosaic of ethnic groups..., each retaining its unique qualities while contributing to the overall pattern" (101).
"Acculturation is the first step of the adaptation process and is defined by different patterns of learning the language and culture of the host country" (Portes & Rumbaut
247).
In the United States, if a person wants to participate as a citizen, he has to adopt the dominant culture, at least in public, in order to enjoy his/her full rights. "Since the
1960's, minority movements have demanded the right to recognition as distinct cultural 161
collectivities within the nation-state" (Castles & Davidson 124). Castles and Davidson propose that citizenship "rules must be based on the recognition that individuality is always formed in social and cultural contexts, and that individuals are always also members of social and cultural groups" (ix). Allowing this recognition would benefit all immigrants because they could continue practicing their culture of choice. "However, many members of the dominant group see cultural difference as a threat to national identity" (Castles & Davidson 125). This has been the cause of the anti-immigrant sentiment and rhetoric that has overrun media and politics lately. That makes me wonder if the United States is open to accepting a cultural citizenship. Even though these citizens are living in this country, we have not yet accepted them as such.
Before discussing the notion of a cultural citizenship, I want to revert to the definition of culture that I elaborated previously in this project. Peter Rose defines culture as “the way people live; the rules they set for themselves; the general ideas around which they organize their lives; the things they feel are good or bad, right or wrong, pleasurable or painful” (10-11). Cultural rights are an essential part of citizenships and should include "full access to the majority language and culture; the right to the maintenance of minority languages and cultures; the right to different customs and lifestyles (within a general framework of law which is not culturally biased); educational equality; the right to intercultural and international communication" (Castles & Davidson
126). The porous boundaries and the multiple identities "undermine ideas of cultural belongings as a necessary accompaniment to political membership" (Castles and
Davidson viii). These cultural rights should be available to all immigrants with no 162
regard to their country of origin or preference of cultural practice; furthermore, they should provide a guaranteed of cultural citizenship.
Anthropologist Renato Rosaldo discusses cultural citizenship as the demand "for full citizenship in spite of their cultural difference from mainstream society" (quoted in
Ong 264).51 I find that acquiring any legal and political rights as well as respect for human life is important since many immigrants continue to be find themselves disenfranchised because of the color of their skin. They still manage to continue being disenfranchised after the fact that they function within the limits of our society.
Unfortunately, their contributions in aspects like politics, economy and culture fail to be recognized and appreciated.
The process of performing a cultural citizenship is more complicated than just demanding it. I base my analysis within the work of anthropologist Aihwa Ong who states that cultural citizenship involves the cultural practices and beliefs that come as a result of the negotiation with the "state and its hegemonic forms that establish the criteria of belonging within a national population and territory" (264). She also refers to
"cultural citizenship" as the dual process of self-making and being-made through the networks of the nation-state and civil society (Ong 264). The approval and integration of a cultural citizen is dependent on how he/she approaches the process in regards to the power relations and how he/she is perceived by the mainstream culture. This process has become very convoluted because of its subjective nature and because those seeking to
51 "The enduring exclusions of the color line often deny full citizenship to Latinos and other people of color. From the point of view of subordinate communities, cultural citizenship offers the possibility of legitimizing demands made in the struggle to enfranchise themselves. These demands can range from legal, political and economic issues to matters of human dignity, well-being, and respect." In Renato Rosaldo, "Cultural citizenship in San José, California." Polar, 17 (1994): 57-63. 163
become cultural citizens are not only being defined by their own parameters but they are being defined and represented by parameters established by those functioning in the dominant culture. In any case, both sides might resent the representation created by the other.
In the United States, the belief and tendency is for people to only be included as part of the national or cultural citizenship if all differences are ignored and if there is a sense of shared identity. This obviously can no longer be the case for this country because the face of America has been changing with the influx of immigrants from all over the world. Despite the fact that nationally, a cultural citizenship has yet to be granted to "illegal immigrants", I have often questioned how many small communities are somewhat successful in practicing a cultural citizenship locally. I am particularly interested in the smaller towns that start establishing these communities of immigrants from a specific location and eventually create smaller versions of their hometowns.
Many of these communities are located in the outskirts of Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles and El Paso, only to name a few; and they include immigrants from different countries.
In order to achieve this integration of cultural citizens, these communities have created "ethnoscapes." Social-cultural anthropologist, Arjun Appadurai presents ethnoscapes as "the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guestworkers and other moving groups and persons constitute the essential feature of the world, and appear to affect the politics of and between nations to a hitherto unprecedented degree" (Appadurai 297). In order to grant specific rights to the immigrants looking to participate and belong within the limits 164
of their community, they have started to visualize the ethnoscapes, along with the growth, potential and connections to other communities inside and outside of the United States.
They take into consideration what these communities have to offer as far as the "features of social organization, such as trust, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions" (Robert Putman quoted in Castles &
Davidson 217). This is referred to as social capital which also includes the education and ethics that need to be taught in order to obtain a cohesive culture (Castles & Davidson
217). This process of visualizing ethnoscapes and utilizing social capital has allowed for the smaller communities to embrace immigrant cultural citizens and begin to thrive as a multiracial and multicultural entity.
According to Samuel P. Huntington, in this country for centuries "Americans have, in varying degrees defined the substance of their identity in terms of race, ethnicity, ideology, and culture. Race and ethnicity are now largely eliminated: Americans see their country as multiethnic, multiracial society" (xv). I find that the multiethnic diversity is changing the way in which each of us is dealing with the "other" especially when that other is so active in popular culture and politics. However, race is still a very large part of the equation when dealing with the local, regional and national cultural citizenship. As
I have discussed in Chapter 4, race will always play a major role in the manner in which this country deals with living and dealing with immigration. The implementation of anti- immigrant laws, the persecution of those that seem different with no regards to their nationality or race, the fight to abolish programs such as bilingual education and ethnic 165
studies are only the beginning in the fight to preserve the ideals of the Anglo-Saxon identity. These efforts have become evident in all aspects of culture and government.
Racial Profiling: The Act of Natural Selection?
The NBPM has presented a series of representations that exemplify the Border
Patrol ideology that still exists in the agency today. One of the practices that the Border
Patrol continues to employ and that is exemplified in the museum is the practice of racial profiling. Racial profiling has been an common modus operandi for the agency throughout the many years in service.52 This is one practice that has been inherited and is currently in operation in the museum narrative.
Kathleen Anne Lytle Hernandez, in her research about Border Patrol history defines racial profiling as “a strategy of policing that couples racially defined human bodies to particular criminal acts and then pursues law enforcement work by using race as evidence for suspicion of criminal activity. It is a practice that unevenly distributes rule by coercive force by racially predicating who will be subjected to and who will be exempted from state violence” (xii). She emphasizes the many incidents where several
Border Patrol agents confess to have acted based on their racial believes about Mexicans living in the border communities. These believes led to many acts of violence and discrimination. Because of this behavior, the Border Patrol has been accused of basing their apprehensions on racial biases; this reputation has continued to carry on throughout many generations.
52 You can find more narratives, representations and other samples of power relations and racial profiling of the Border Patrol in La Migra me hizo los mandados by Alicia Alarcon, "The Border Patrol State" by Leslie Marmon Silko, and the ACLU website: http://www.aclu-wa.org/blog/help-stop-racial-profiling-border-patrol
166
The acts of racism, prejudice and violence have developed unfavorable representations of the Border Patrol agent as well as the undocumented or illegal immigrant.53 I have chosen to discuss several exhibits from the NBPM because I read them as racially biased. I am focusing on how they project racial undertones, and how they questioned the illegality of the Latino in the border region.
"ILLEGAL" Homies in the House
The following is based on what I consider to be one of the most racially charged displays in the museum. The exhibit is divided by the power relations it represents, of which I will address later in the chapter. One section of the exhibit includes the miniature replicas of Border Patrol vehicles along with the dolls of the Border Patrol agents. The other section includes the Homies dolls and other replicas of the vehicles.
Before my discussion about this particular exhibit, I want to offer some background information about the Homies.
The Homies dolls or toys have become a very important aspect of the Hispanic or
Latino community in the United States. Adults and children of all ages have become obsessed with collecting and trading these figures. Originally, the Homies characters made their debut in the “Adventures of Hollywood”, a comic strip in Lowrider Magazine.
They were the inspiration and creativity of artist turned entrepreneur, David Gonzales.
The 2-inch figurines depicted by Gonzales are the characters and family members from the barrio.54 Gonzales is responsible for creating more than 200 characters and a series of
53 Please refer to Chapter 4 Wild, Wild West for a discussion on the different representations of the Border Patrol agent 54 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-homies18dec18,0,28879,full.story?coll=la-home-center 167
spinoffs which include a group of Latino kids, different trouble-maker rats, and a Sicilian crime family. The Homies brand has sold more than 100 million figures in the United
States and Canada alone (Parvaz 1). They have become such an important commodity for the Latino/Hispanic community because it is allegedly representing all aspects of their culture.
According to the Homies website, the word homie, “is a popular street term that refers to someone from your hometown or, in a broader sense, anyone that you would acknowledge as your friend.”55 The Homies, a group of tightly knit Chicano buddies, have grown up in the Mexican-American barrio of “Quien Sabe” located in East Los
Angeles (Homies website). All of them have a story, which in many cases is “shady” or filled with violence and racism.
"Homie Don't Play That"
In 1999, a year after their release, Homies were vilified by the Los Angeles Police
Department, which argued that the figurines glorified gang life and culture. The controversy affected the Latino community since many of the Latino organizations were working hard to celebrate positive depictions in the media (Corrado 6). Forced to create mini bios to counter attack the criticism, Gonzales responded by stating, “Don’t like them, don’t buy them” (Parvaz 1). The controversy only caused a different response than the one expected by the LAPD, since it brought attention to this type of artistic expression and created more of an interest in collecting the polemic dolls.
55 http://www.homies.tv/home.htm 168
These dolls have become an iconic symbol to both the Latino/Hispanic and
Chicano community and to the NBPM. They have also become a tool for when they want to represent the illegal immigrant. During my visits to the museum, I started to document the different types of exhibitions mounted. One of the most interesting and racially charged exhibit was the one displaying the work of Ned Thomas, Supervisor with the Border Patrol stationed in Eagle Pass, Texas. Thomas has built miniature scale reproductions or replicas of the Border Patrol vehicles of the past (see figure 5.3). He includes some of the vehicles utilized by the Border Patrol since 1924. As part of the exhibition by Thomas, the museum has included several other plastic figurines of human beings and animals. There are several dolls dressed as Border Patrol agents and plastic figures of their sniffing dogs.
Next to these plastic figures are the Homies dolls that stand next to the miniature replicas of vehicles created by Thomas. The Homies are displayed next to the replicas of the light green transport buses as if waiting to be transferred. The figurines of Homies dolls are being represented as Figure 5.3 the undocumented “illegal” immigrants next to the miniature replicas of the Border Patrol buses and cars. Not only are these figurines portraying a negative representation of the apprehended undocumented immigrant but they are targeting and destroying the little visibility of Latinos or Hispanics available 169
within the museum’s walls. Interestingly enough, the Homies dolls brand was created as a representation of the Chicanos and not the "illegal" immigrants, as portrayed in the
NBPM (see figure 5.4). Many of the Homies dolls are depicting the Chicano community and the Mexican American barrio culture; however, not all Homies are participants of that culture. The Homies brand has a medley of characters like grandma, the local priest, the meat and ice cream salesman, the war veteran and the mariachi. In the NBPM display we only get to see the Homies associated in the gang culture. What happened to the
Abuelita, El Padrecito, Carnecero, El Paletero, Veterano and Mariachi Pancho?
Figure 5.4
In her research about Latino culture, Carolyn Corrado studies the different representations of Latinos and their identities through the Homies collectible toys. She finds that they personify a reflection of Latinos and at the same instance present a
“subversion and exploitation of negative Latino and Latina stereotypes” (2). Her project focuses on examining the toys as embodiments of racial/ethnic stereotypes found in the 170
larger mainstream society. According to Corrado, “toys are sites of philosophical struggle, [and] they form a text that invites a discussion of contemporary issues regarding empowerment, control, social roles and consumption” (Jackson 139). The NBPM exhibit appropriates such an iconic cultural symbol like the Homies and presents it in a different context to create a stereotypical representation of the immigrant. Through these stereotypes we can see the dehumanization of the immigrant. "Stereotypes are created, the opponent is demonized, the other is transmogrified into the enemy" (Huntington 26).
As much as this stereotype changes the manner in which the immigrant is perceived, we have to acknowledge that stereotypes, as inaccurate as they might be, are still a form of representations.
The Homies serve as substitutions for what the Border Patrol considers to be real.
The Homies are not there to tell it like it is but to invite and encourage pretense about a culture, a lifestyle and its people. They are a fantasy, an objectification of the Latino or
Hispanic identity and they project an image that can be understood and read as less threatening. Even if the exhibition includes the Homies and the replicas of the Border
Patrol vehicles, the Latino or Hispanic community is not being represented in the display.
The power relation, where the Border
Patrol is predominant, is done only to create a distance between the two Figure 5.5 agencies: the Border Patrol agent and 171
the "illegal" immigrant. I should also mention that the plastic figures of the BP agent are twice as large as the Homies dolls used to represent the “illegal immigrant” (see figure
5.5).
Prior to my research, many visitors to the museum had already protested the exhibition, and yet the NBPM continues to stand by their narrative (see figure 5.6 and
5.7). After an ABC viewer complained about the Homies dolls stating “At first I thought it was a joke until I read the caption... It basically portrayed Latinos as dirty thugs and
cholas”, the administrators at the museum
responded that their intents were never to
offend anyone in the Latino community
(Molestina 1). David Ham, the President
of the Board of Governors at the museum,
Figure 5.6 stated “I don’t think there was any racist intent or attempt to denigrate any person... and were not meant to hurt feelings”
(Molestina 1). Unfortunately, neither the museum nor the Board of Governors removed the display nor apologized for the exhibit.
The marginalized and displaced position of Latinos or Hispanics in the
U.S. invites the use of stereotypes as a form of representation in popular culture. Regardless of their growing numbers, Latinos are still an oppressed Figure 5.7 172
group that is rarely portrayed in a positive light in the mainstream media. When Latinos are represented, images of violent gang members, drug dealers, and illegal immigrants or undocumented workers are abundant. At the NBPM, the objectification and reconstruction of the illegal immigrant identity is transposed from personal to cultural artifacts that bear witness to their suffering by racism and prejudice.
A Threat to the American Race and Culture
Moving from the mundane to ethnographic artifacts
The Homies exhibit is only one example of how the museum deconstructs, reclaims a symbol and reinvents or reconstructs it to serve its purpose. There are other displays that have gone through the same deconstruction of identities to fit the Figure 5.8 narrative intended for the museum.
The NBPM established another exhibition presenting the varied artifacts that were supposedly confiscated from the immigrants. The exhibit includes a variety of objects or artifacts, such as backpacks, food and water, hygiene products, necklaces, clothes, and blankets (see figure 5.8). The museum staff states that these objects were left behind by
"runaway" immigrants and they were donated to be displayed. At first, I was not affected by the display since it only contains things that seemed mundane: cans of beans, chiles or tuna. I disregarded the display as irrelevant to what I was researching for this project. In 173
spite of my first reaction, I decided to revisit this display and I found it much more interesting.
The most striking aspect of this exhibition is what it does not say but imply with the choice of objects it presents. On my second visit as a researcher/scholar, I began to read most of the displays differently from the manner I used to as a community visitor.
The first aspect of this display that attracts me is the amount of electrolyte solution, water, flavored waters and soda left behind. I counted a total of 7 bottles of liquids. The second object that attracted my attention was the rolled up covers wrapped tightly between the other objects. I then take a closer look and find a new pack of bandages, a small bottle of medication (which I assume is for wounds), and a torn up calling card worth 100 pesos. In one of the sides of the display I notice a small black wallet and a small black purse (see figure 5.9). I am able to see the different objects confiscated or found in the border. What I am unable to see is the faces of the people who left Figure 5.9 this behind for us to interpret.
I was immediately stopped in my tracks because the museum places no importance in the fact that these objects were left behind by a human being that most likely needed them for his/her survival. The liquids, covers, bandages, calling card and 174
wallet put everything into perspective because I was able to see the necessity of water to keep hydrated, the covers to keep warm, the bandages to attend wounds, the calling card to make sure someone knows of their existence and the wallet with all personal information. All of this is omitted from the display. Special Agent for the U.S. Customs
Service, Lee Morgan II has stated, "your heart has to go out to anyone willing to face numerous perils just to feed his family. If it wasn't for the sporadic asshole-criminal types that mix in with the 'working class' of alien, you'd almost want to let these guys skate" (297). He has been one of the few agents that has spoken about the difficulties that most "illegal" immigrants go through in their passage to the U.S. This display has made me very aware of what would happen to any of us if we were missing these things in our most dire need.
Other objects included in the same display are two necklaces. One of the necklaces has the image of "Santo Malverde" who is known to be the saint of the poor and the drug dealers. By exhibiting the objects owned by border crossers/illegal immigrants and objects owned by supposed drug smugglers together in one display, the museum is placing both of these entities actions in the same level of criminality and illegality. The confiscated objects have become very important to the museum's narrative because they contribute to the dehumanization and objectification of the illegal immigrant. It takes many readings before anyone can see through this narrative. At first glance it serves its purpose of presenting the immigrant as a drug smuggler and threat to the American way of life. However, if one visits with an open mind, the narratives are 175
open to a myriad of interpretations which challenge the one intended by the museum. In the museum space they become ethnographic objects.
In her discussion about ethnographic objects, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett states that “ethnographic objects are made; not found... they became ethnographic through processes of detachment and contextualization” (3). When first found, the objects provide a place for personal and cultural/collective memory. They become labeled as mysterious and foreign at the same time that they are given a value and authorship. Later, when the object obtains authorship and is placed in a historical archive, it is pulled from cultural and collective memory, a realm in which they are presented to be shared and to participate in the memories of others, i.e. immigrants or
U.S. citizens that visit the museum. The change in their status occurs because these objects assert individual narratives that disrupt historical narratives intended by the museum. The objects will manage to resist history precisely because of their obscure nature and their refusal to yield specific individual meanings.
After reading and analyzing all the different displays I find that the different artifacts and objects presented in the exhibits serve as a form of ethnographic objects in a purification memorial. By displaying these objects, the NBPM is disconnecting and purifying itself of any of the guilt or related emotions they might feel for their actions towards the owners of these objects. By dehumanizing immigrants and showing them as dolls, as criminals or offenders, they excuse their past actions of racism and unjust treatment. The confiscated objects move from not belonging to anyone and everyone, to 176
becoming historical and artistic artifacts to represent immigrants. They are no longer simple, mundane objects; they become a form of communication or icon for a subculture.
With each object, the visitor is in the presence of a work of art that is rendered for individual contemplation and interpretation. At first, the object itself might not overwhelm us because it might seem so expendable; yet, when found in the desert and later displayed in the museum, the object becomes unique and irreplaceable at the same time that it is deployed as foreign and mysterious. In many moments of reflection, I myself have wondered about these objects and their owners. Who and where are they?
Did they survive the dangerous journey back to their country? Did they ever come back to the Unite States? Have they revisited their belongings in the museum as visitors and not criminals? I will never get answers to these questions because these objects, as individual narratives, have become part of the museum's narrative. The outcome of these individuals will always linger in my thoughts because I have not been able to disconnect myself from the narratives that I have created through my readings of the artifacts.
The "chiv": A tool of "illegal immigrant" representation
The "immigrant" representation is evoked in many of the exhibits in the museum.
The NBPM has included one exhibit that has also contributed to the representation of the immigrant as a criminal. The exhibit is a two panel displays that contains many objects in the form of knives and other weaponry concealed under a glass frame (see figure 5.10).
The objects in the frames contextualize the threat they pose to the Border Patrol agents.
The display contains a brief explanation that these tools were used in self-defense of animals, human smugglers, and thieves confronted in their entry into the United States. 177
Many of these objects are also used for
rudimentary things like grooming, a
detail that is completely omitted by the
exhibit.
Barrera states that “a common
theme of all the artifacts on display and
on sale is the threat that the immigrant, Figure 5.10 as a criminal because of his or her illegal status, poses to American society” (167). Barrera explains how the two subjects, the immigrant and the Border Patrol agent become intertwined in a “conflict that can only be solved through reduction by annihilation or assimilation” (167). The power relation between the agent and the "illegal" is presented in a very romanticized manner: the two battle for the lives in the border dessert and only one will survive. This portrayal is associated with the many representations of the Border Patrol agent, as discussed in the previous chapter. This romantic tale is where the myth of the “Mean Green” machine originates, a rhetorical strategy used by the agency to portray the actions and counter responses in their line of work.56
56 This myth has been the inspiration of which the title for this dissertation originates. 178
All these exhibits and narratives in the museum become a central component in its intent to reinforce specific representations by reinventing or reconstructing identities. In the structuring of the museum, the NBPM displaces the immigrant out of modernity. By showing the knives confiscated by the Border Patrol agents, the objects and artifacts,
“having no authors and no continuity with known traditions, alienated from their own intended functions in antiseptic plexiglass exhibition cases, are at once lifeless and immortal” (Wallace 375). Once again, we see the lack of faces and agency of those leaving the objects behind. The knives as artifacts of culture prevent the existence of a present and a past. All we see is the lifeless objects (knives) that tell us only what the museum wants us to see and their present history, discourse or agency (see figure 5.11). They Figure 5.11 bring attention to themselves when in other instances they might have been oblivious to us. We, as visitors, are left to create a narrative for the artifacts. The knives turn into ethnographic objects when they are detached and (de)contextualized from their owners.
The sources and the destination of the objects are no longer connected or related.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett states that “ethnography is inscribed in books, or displayed behind glass, at a remove in space, time and language from the site described”
(18). For this reason, the objects cease to be what they once were and no longer serve the 179
same purpose. They become a tool of immigrant representation; yet, there is still a sense of alienability of what is collected and what is really shown. Most of those attending the museum have no real understanding of the purpose or function of these objects because they are disconnected from their lives. These objects have become a life line for many of the immigrants; an idea so foreign for the museum visitors.
In viewing the knives exhibit, I am proposing a new form of analyzing the artifacts. I propose they are studied as ‘cultural artifacts of globalized primitivism’.57 By
"cultural artifacts of globalized primitivism," I am referring to the fact that these objects have become cultural artifacts representing the illegal immigrant. These objects are part of a globalized environment because they are being produced in a region where the third world meets the first world. This region is where the effects of globalization are most evident because the U.S.-Mexico border has suffered the consequences of free trade and foreign investment, as in the case of the maquiladoras. Unfortunately, these objects are placed in a space of primitivism because they are always representing the dehumanized and objectified in its most primitive state. The knives were never intended to hold up to scrutiny as singular creations. The objects point away from themselves to something else, a different message, a different representation: the immigrant. This is the manner in which the NBPM has reinvented and reconstructed the immigrant representation.
57 The concept of "cultural artifacts of globalized primitivism" is my own interpretation of a combination of notions presented by Michele Wallace in "The Prison House of Culture: Why African art? Why the Guggenheim? Why now?" In Visual Culture Reader, by Nicholas Mirzoeff v.2, 2008. Her notions include "primitivist modernism" and "artifact of culture." p. 376 180
Indigenous methods as a racial profiling and discrimination tool
In society today, race is not a simple source used to classify people by their genetic makeup. Race is being used a tool to identify and place people accordingly to their culturally defined social position (Rose, P., 12). By doing this, we have allowed ourselves and others to manipulate our race to fit a desired motif or discourse. The act of defining a person by a culturally defined social position can also be referred to as racial profiling. The practice of racial profiling has sparked conflict because of its subjective nature. Yet, the discussion about racism and prejudice in the border region has continued to be a taboo subject when dealing with identities in the border. As far as my analysis of the border dynamic, I have continuously questioned the acts of violence in the border and how many of them have been a result of racial profiling. With this notion in mind, I have revisited the NBPM and have observed the different exhibitions looking for an answer to many of my questionings about race. I question if many of the racial profiling acts that first inspired the creation of the Border Patrol have become instilled as part of the essence of the NBPM. By choosing to place certain displays, the museum has entered a new form of visualizing race and culture.
The NBPM has dedicated an exhibit to signcutting, the art of tracking inherited by the Native American populations in this country. Tracking continues to be a strategy utilized by the Border Patrol to detect the immigrants that come across the border illegally. The exhibit is composed of several objects that have been used by immigrants to deceive the Border Patrol agents. For example, one of the walls contains a pair of sandals that have pieces of wood cut-outs in the shape of cow hoofs. This allows the foot 181
prints to become animal tracks instead. The immigrants that cross the border have resorted to these acts because tracking has proved to be very proficient within the agency.
The exhibit glorifies the work done by the agents and dismisses the fact that the tracking or signcutting within the Border Patrol agency is based on racial biases. The
memoirs of Border Patrol agents
have revealed how race played an
important role when apprehending
illegal immigrants. The Border
Patrol agents have been trained to
read the tracks of the desert Figure 5.12 walkers (see figure 5.12 and 5.13).
The problem with this is that they have continued to use the same system that was established since the beginning of the agency. They are trained to track the height and weight of the person who left the tracks.
Many of the original trackers went as far as to say that they were capable of guessing whether the individual was black or white by reading their tracks. This procedure Figure 5.13 eludes the idea that there is race imprinted in the tracks.
According to Border Patrol agent Fred “Yaqui” D’Albini: “A Mexican always walks heavy on the outside of his feet. When he walks, he puts his foot down on the heel 182
first and then rolls it off-Indians will do that, too” (Lytle Hernandez 7).58 D’Albini became one of the most important figures in the Border Patrol since he was not only an agent but a tracking instructor as well. He was recognized for his tracking abilities and for his racist agenda. During his training classes, he liked to joke by guessing on specific tracks. He would say things like, “Mexican male; about 5’5” to 5’8”; dark brown hair; brown eyes; dark complexion; wearing huaraches... and so on...” (Lytle
Hernande 8).59 These personal narratives show that he was targeting and making fun of a particular type of suspects, the Mexican male. Racial profiling has remained a core strategy of immigration law enforcement into the 1920s to the 1950s. I will go as far as saying that racial profiling continues to be a popular practice that is still in existence and thriving today .
The Border Patrol continues to focus its practices upon a “racialized illegal immigration by a double process that rendered white illegal aliens invisible and injected illegality into a reconstructed Mexican identity” (Lytle Hernandez 17). The National
Origins Act, included in the Immigration Act of 192460, states that white Americans and immigrants from Europe can claim a national origin because they can identify their ancestors. In the case of 'colored people', the political context assumes the illegality of all blacks, mulattos, Chinese, Japanese and Indians (Lytle Hernandez 181). The central argument of the Act was “the protection of American racial stock from further
58 This particular memoir by D’Albini can be read in Peter Odens, The Desert Trackers: Men of the Border Patrol. 59 D’Albini’s citation can be found in Bill Jordan, Tales of the Rio Grande. 60 The Border Patrol agency was started thanks to the Immigration Act of 1924 183
degradation or change through mongrelization” (Lytle Hernandez 23). The importance of
“whiteness” became a key factor during the apprehensions of immigrants.
In the case of those Americans that supported the purity of an Anglo-Saxon identity, they argue that it was senseless to “purify the racial content of America by restricting immigration from most non-white regions of the world while leaving the ‘back door’ to Mexico open (Lytle Hernandez 29). Those that opposed Mexican immigration believed them to be members of a "mongrel" race of "Indians and Negroes". The Border
Patrol racialized the idea of illegality and immigration and forever changed the way in which it conducted its apprehensions.
Racial profiling continued beyond the apprehension of illegal immigrants. The act of racial profiling affected all ranks in the Border Patrol agency. “Despite the constant scramble to hire and retain officers, the Border Patrol’s emphasis upon hiring local men did not include the large numbers of Mexicanos living and working in the region” (Lytle Hernandez 38). This is reflected in the NBPM Wall of Fame where all the original members are white. The first Latinos or Hispanics that were of Mexican descent, either considered themselves to be Spaniards or considered themselves to be less
Mexican by marrying into white successful families. They denounced all of their
Mexican ancestry. They managed to integrate themselves through the inclusion/exclusion process. They included themselves into white families and excluded themselves from their Mexican ancestry. These men did not join the agency until 1929.
The racial biases and ideology that established the U.S. Border Patrol have been there 184
from the beginning and are now inherited, reflected and celebrated in the practices of the
NBPM today.
The "illegal immigrant": a threat to the American way of life
There is no secret in the fact that immigrants have been perceived as a threat to the American way of life. The threat and counter attacks from all parties have worsen due to our current political and economic status in the U.S. One only has to take a look at one particular state that serves as an example of what Americans are capable of doing when their way of living is threaten by immigration; I am referring to the State of
Arizona. The Tea Party has hired Sheriff Arpaio to investigate the origins and birth certificate of President Obama.61 In this same state, an administrative law judge has put a halt on Mexican-American studies in the public schools for teaching "in a biased, political, and emotionally charged manner".62 Arizona is constantly looking into implementing an "English Only" policy. Furthermore, Governor Jan Brewer, not only publicly disrespected President Obama during one of his visits to the state, but along with
Sheriff Arpaio, insists on imposing state law over federal law in her attempt to marginalize an entire race by pushing the police departments to become immigration officers. This is only one example of a state that is reinforcing the American way of life ideology. Harold Cruse, author of The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, stated that
"America is a nation that lies to itself about who and what it is. It is a nation of
61 In an interview, Univision news anchor and reporter, Jorge Ramos, call Sheriff Joe Arpaio the "face of racism and discrimination." For more information go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXwA9uTx4A 62 CNN U.S. on-line article titled "Arizona ruling hits Mexican-American studies program. For more information go to: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-12-28/us/us_arizona-ethnic-studies_1_tucson-unified- school-district-mexican-american-studies-program-ruling?_s=PM:US 185
minorities ruled by a minority of one - it thinks and acts as if it were a nation of white
Anglo-Saxon Protestants" (quoted in Huntington, 61). New Mexico, Texas, California,
Illinois and Massachusetts are just a few examples of states that are currently witnessing their own political, racial, cultural and economic battles involving immigrants from many different countries.
The threat or fear of immigrants is not due to their status (as immigrants), it has to do more with their lack of assimilation. "As a result of modern communications and transportations, these migrants have been able to remain part of their original culture and community" (Huntigton 14). In the cases of Arizona and other states with major Mexican immigrant communities we are seeing a Mexican diaspora. A diasporic consciousness is one in "which immigrant minorities identify mainly with their ancestral homeland and with people of the same ethnic origin, both in the homeland and in other countries"
(Cohen quoted in Castles & Davidson 139). A Mexican diaspora is a relatively new concept because earlier "waves of immigrants were subjected to intense programs of
Americanization to assimilate them into American society" (Huntington 18). Theorists have started to redefine and generalize the term to be more inclusive of the particular situation of countries like the U.S.
I agree that diasporas are concerned with identifying with the ancestral homeland; however, it involves so much more than making connections with people of the same ethnic origin. I base my argument within the work by Stuart Hall when he refers to diasporas as no longer just being an "umbilical connection to the holy land" but as being more "open to difference"; the new diasporas are focusing on replacing the "roots" with 186
"routes" (quoted in Osbourne and Segal 402). The political and economic state in
Mexico has engrained a sense of fear and insecurity that has pushed for a large wave of migration of people within and outside the country's limits. Mexican diasporas within the different states in the U.S. have been successful in maintaining political ties, making connections with their homeland and with others of the same ethnic background.
Furthermore, they have started to be more open to accepting the differences of others and integrating them as part of their culture without assimilating into the American culture.
In addition, they have been very successful in tracing the routes for those joining them in their new land. That is why in the states like Arizona, the Mexican immigrant has become such a threat to not only the way of life but to the race, culture, and language.
In its uniqueness, the U.S.-Mexican border has served as an example for other countries to learn how to deal with conflictive racial and cultural power relations. The citizens, whether cultural or national, have learned to maintain an open relation in order to assure their survival within the country's limits. The NBPM has been witness to these power struggles and has made an effort to represent the different entities that come into contact in the border. The objects and artifacts have become the focal point in the museum. We never see their faces of those leaving their stories behind but we see the evidence of their existence. We can only imagine a dehumanized and objectified being that leaves us his history to be told by our interpretations race, class, citizenship and legality within the material. The NBPM has reinvented or deconstructed these ethnic and racial identities through the displaying of these objects. These have served their purpose of creating a narrative that each and every one of us will read through our own 187
experiences. It is the locus of enunciation that has given these artifacts a voice that represents the many entities still being marginalized and disenfranchised in the border.
188
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION
The Construction and Reconstruction of racial identities revisited
Museums are places where visitors go to experience a sense of history, life and culture. They are an important part of our cultural and historical process because they help shape our collective identity. The National Border Patrol Museum in El Paso,
Texas, established by The Fraternal Order of Retired Border Patrol Officers (FORBPO), offers such opportunity to view a side of history, life and culture in the border that no other museum in the world has to offer. Mean Green: A Visual Cultural Analysis of the
National Border Patrol Museum analyzes the museum's exhibits and the use of space, symbols and discourse. Originally, I set out to find how the representations exhibited within the museums walls were constructed, reconstructed and deconstructed. However, the museum offered so much more to me as a visitor and a scholar during my research because I was able to observe how these representations are rearticulated in everyday border life.
The interests for this project grew out of conversations with my friends who are
Border Patrol agents and described the artifacts and exhibits in the museum. I began visiting the museum prior to beginning the theoretical research for this project. After studying theories in Visual Cultural Studies, museology and spatial theory, I began to see the museum under a very different lens. The biggest challenge for writing this dissertation has been to take the interdisciplinary focus and synthesize it to help me analyze my observations and compile my results. Through an interdisciplinary lens, 189
which spans from Border Studies, Ethnic Studies, Visual Cultural Studies, discourse analysis, museology, and spatial theory, I study a space that brings together visual culture, politics, and history and analyze what it is doing culturally and socially.
The observations and reading of the museum have permitted me to deconstruct the museum and its narratives. I was able to observe the NBPM with a critical vision and fully understand the effects that its content and discourse might have on me or any other visitors. I presented a personal observational account of my walk through the museum because it helps frame my findings. The following are the findings for my research.
The NBPM, in juxtaposition with the border region, has developed a dynamic where both are being represented as a heterotopia and homotopia. The border region is a heterotopic space because it has been created in co-existence of cultures in a territory that is unreal since El Paso functions within a different nation state. The museum, on the other hand, has created a homotopic space where "a nation of one" has become its ideological representation and narrative. This will be the case for years to come since the museum staff insists on maintaining its ties to the El Paso area.
The museum has created imagined communities and reinforced cultural identities in the process. Benedict Anderson, in Imagined Communities has presented an imagined community as one that lives in the memories of its members since it is imagined through its historical memory. The NBPM has created an imagined community by referencing its historical patrimony to tell its narratives that in some instances have become challenged when they come into contact with the narratives and historical patrimony of the immigrant population. 190
The process of reinforcing cultural identities also include presenting the museum as a "panoptic" space where the agents employed within this space exercise their power relations and create an advantage over the visitor. According to Bentham, the original creator of the panopticon notion, the center stands a tower with wide windows that contains the power and is open to circular structure divided into cells, which hold the supervised participants (Faucault 1995, 200). I find that the panopticon notion is evoked within the museum space and it is what has allowed the exercise of power relations and created an advantage for those working for the museum.
The museum and its content are serving a purpose of nation building and commodification of certain symbols like the Border Patrol paraphernalia. As mentioned earlier, the process of turning objects into commodities occurs in three ways:1) the visitor serving as the commodity possessor; 2) the NBPM serving as the commodity possessor;
3) the museum donator serving as the commodity possessor. Each of these possessors is in charge of negotiating and turning their objects into commodities that will leave the museum and serve as tools in nation building for the hegemonic state.
The white American male and the "illegal" immigrant representations are constructed, reconstructed and deconstructed in the museum to fit the needs of the hegemonic state. I studied varied representations of the white Anglo-Saxon American male as a hypermasculine entity. Such representations included the American white male as a cowboy, soldier and hero. These representations have permitted the American white male to attain a superior position over those perceived as inferior, like the "illegal" immigrant. In order to keep a relation of power, the dominant agent must continue 191
reaffirming that power in order to keep it. The NBPM has served as a tool for those dominant agents to maintain and continue to keep an upper hand in the relation of power when the cowboy, hero and soldier representations are evoked outside of the museum space; hence the 20-foot statue of the cowboy that stands outside.
I also studied immigrant representations and how they are depicted as people who are marginalized poor and criminals. As a result of my research, I find that the NBPM practices racial profiling when constructing the exhibits. One of the most racially charged displays in the museum is the exhibit containing the miniature replicas of the
Border Patrol vehicles along with the plastic figurines of agents and Homies dolls. The
Homies have become a stereotype of the dehumanization of the immigrant figure; a substitution for what the Border Patrol considers to be real. This is also true for the two- panel display that contains many objects in the form of knives and other weaponry supposedly confiscated from "illegal" immigrant border crossers. These figurines and what they represent have become a threat to the white American race and culture and for this reason they are placed in a marginalized and displaced position. The objectification and reconstruction of illegal immigrant identity is transposed from personal to cultural artifacts that bear witness to their suffering by racism and prejudice.
Having the opportunity to do my research for this project at the NBPM has allowed for me to see how the museum is a representation of what is happening in the world today. I mentioned earlier that certain representations have become a threat to the white American race and culture. I find that these representations have also become a threat to the way of life in the U.S. All the results found in this project are only a 192
reflection of what is happening in our society today. The people in this country still continue to live their lives believing that we live in heterotopic or homotopic space when in reality this country has become a hotch-potch of identities and cultures that do not even closely relate to a heterotopia nor homotopia. Due to the economic and political state of the United States, everyone is looking out for their own interests and look to blame others for their misfortunes. Such is the case of the "illegal" and documented immigrants that have become the scapegoat to all the problems in the country.
This country has also seen the disconnections between the imagined communities because of the recent economic and political problems that have led everyone to see their communities for what they really are and what they lack. As a result, these communities have also created a sort of panopticon space where everyone is forming part of the surveillance of each other. This has led to the creation of representations that have put the white American male in a position of dominance and has vilified and dehumanize the image of the immigrant in this country. Going through the process of creating and viewing these representation has demonstrated the correlation between the narratives in the museum and the reality of life outside the museum walls.
For future research, I want to continue visiting the museum and observing its changes over time. Society in the U.S. will continue to change and the museum will follow whatever trends may come. I want to continue researching the museum in real space and not just virtually and see how it changes. Will the museum leave the El Paso area? Technology had a strong influence in our society. I want to see if it will have an impact in the way in which the museum performs. 193
I am curious to learn if the representations/exhibits will change to fit the hegemonic state of the future or if they will they remain the same. I am most interested in learning if the racial rhetoric will change when addressing the representations of immigrants. Furthermore, if there is a change in the rhetoric, will there be positive representation of the Latino/Hispanic identity? I will take this research and apply the theoretical framework to the study and reading of the Border Patrol agency. I will specifically address the acts/reports of racial profiling. I will analyze the representations of the Border Patrol agents and observe/study them as hypersexualized entities, focusing on their representations of hypermasculine agents. It will be interesting to learn more about the reports on sexual harassment and rape as a direct correlations of hypermasculine and hypersexualized representations.
In finishing the research for this project, talking to my colleagues about my results, and in reflecting about my findings, I have come to learn that the notion of minority has nothing to do with race and more to do with the locus of enunciation. I have addressed issues with race and identity and concluded that race and identity become very subjective depending on the locus of enunciation. In the border region, I find that the
Anglo-Saxon Protestant identity comes into conflict with the "illegal" undocumented immigrant. However, what happens if these identities are moved into a different locus of enunciation? Their power in representation becomes voided when moved into other regions. What happens if we move the undocumented immigrant into New Jersey? What happens if we move the Border Patrol agent into the same location? These two no longer have the same juxtaposition that has trivialized their relationship for centuries. The 194
border region has such a strong effect on the power relations that it can manipulate the dynamic between those living in the area. Their relationships become agitated by the external influences and aggravated by the contact in the border space. I will study these representations and attempt to understand them in order to seek possible representations that go beyond the ones presented in the NBPM.
195
APPENDIX A
Code of the Frontline Words & Music by Lou Patch Whalebelly
There is a will, stronger than any tide There is a hope, that won't be pushed aside A vision so true, it stands the test of time Built upon a few, now many stay the line
The flames of freedom, reach the sky Bringing glory, from on high We will fight to keep that fire burning
Chorus: Cause that's the code, of the frontline To bring honor, and keep the peace That's the code, of the frontline To keep us strong, and keep us free, keep us free
Oh in days of old, they asked no quarter Man and woman and child, they came to serve We will honor, their resolve Never failing, to heed the call We will fight to keep that fire burning
(Chorus) Watching day and night We will stay the course, and be the light Standing side by side We will hold the line, and toe the line (Break) Scripture - Matt 5:4-9 (Chorus)
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APPENDIX B
Tribute to a Fallen Agent
A sound of bagpipes rises from the open plain the melody is haunting like the muffled cries of a child we are drawn to this holy ground to honor one of our own, cradling them one last time before conceding their journey into forever full-gun volley he is now immortalized, sweat and blood stitched in every flag’s fold in that instant, his legacy takes flight to the next generation huddling by his side just as his father... and his father before him. on the border, he still rides the plains on horseback or battered four-wheel drive with that wry grin, and the seasoned edge of a desert cowboy in the end, his patience is what prevailed over formidable adversaries who learned to listen to the Rio Grande through canyons to the sea
197
we will remember the quiet warrior still clad in green, spit shined and salty as earth lifeblood of the border for 85 years, your tales have spun like so many MGM classics, winded palaminos and chance encounters with liquor runners and drug whores now your pistol and chaps lie in wait remembering your vigilance like the day that man killed John in Dallas too many heros for a single wake none more fallen than the next. and still we look for your spirit in desert arroyos, soggy wetlands or in the soft glow of twisting northern lights It is their way never lost, and never, even forgotten by Doug Mosier, El Paso Sector
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